Sonic Boom
by MaggieLimerick
Summary: The tables have been turned now that Eggman's newest scheme has been put into motion, and now Amy must run from Sonic in order to save both their lives. Is there any way that she can outrun the fastest thing alive and foil Eggman? Or will being close to the very one she loves be the end of both their lives, as they know it?
1. Prologue

Sonic Boom

Prologue

Run. Run now. Run!

Her legs took complete control and started moving her faster and faster like a rocket taking off as she leaped off of the float. Breaths came in sloppy gasps and spurts, erupting from her lips only to be inhaled once again as she moved faster and faster. Her red boots hit the pavement in a steadily progressing rhythm as she pushed herself harder and harder, yet she knew the odds of getting away were slim to none. Pain filled her chest as her lungs expanded and collapsed rapidly, forcing air in and out of her mouth and nose in a loud whoosh.

The world blurred around Amy Rose as she sprinted around the next corner and into the busy street. Horns blared, brakes screeched, and people yelled angrily as she dodged and darted through the traffic in the street, nearly killing herself in the process. There was no way she could turn back and look to see if he was behind her, that would only slow her down. Leaving the street behind her, she dashed through the crowds of people gathered along the side of the street for the parade. If she didn't hurry, every single one of these people would die. She would die. He would die.

Instincts took over guiding her through the masses of people, and she weaved through them not even caring if she knocked a few over in the process. Finally she overcame the crowds only to find herself at the entrance of the train station. Throwing the large glass doors open, she slid inside, traversed the lobby, and flew up the stairs before she could see the doors of the train just beginning to close. Shoving the guards out of the way, she dashed and slid through the gap just as the door shut. The train began to slowly move along the tracks as it picked up momentum, increasing the amount of dread in her chest with each chug. The guards were angry and banging on the window of the train, shouting things at Amy that she could not make out.

"_Come on, come on, come on!" _she thought to herself as the train finally began to depart from the station. She kept her face plastered against the window, watching and waiting for him to come up the steps. Just then she saw the blur blast up the stairs and come to an abrupt stop. He stood there scanning the train car windows looking for her, but she dropped to the floor, praying that he didn't see her.

Time passed by excruciatingly slowly as she lay there on the floor waiting and staring down at the carpet underneath her. And she waited. And waited. And waited for him to find her. Her greatest fear at this very moment, and possibly in her entire life was that Sonic would get too close and kill not only him and her, but also the whole city in the process.

A/N: It's been a while since I've written anything, so I'd appreciate any feedback, good or bad. I'm a little concerned that this storyline isn't going to work out as I'm hoping it will. Not all of the details have been sorted out, so this is kind of an experiment to see if not only can I pull this off, but to see if you all are interested in reading it.


	2. Run, Run As Fast As You Can

Sonic Boom

Chapter 1

**Sonic**

Sonic blasted through the alleyways of Station Square, listening to the exuberant boisterous music echo throughout the entire city. The noise bounced back and forth between the densely packed buildings lined along the streets, and people shouted and cheered as the floats crawled through the city at painfully slow speeds, much too slow for Sonic anyway. There was something slightly refreshing about all the happiness that was permeating throughout the air, and this was the first time he had seen such an event.

He dashed around the next corner, and then the next until he was standing in the midst of a crowd of cheering people. Everyone seemed to be happy and smiling, enjoying the performance as though they had no care in the world. The blue hedgehog moved from where he was and sped up the side of a small family owned restaurant in order to stand on the edge of the roof so he could gaze out over the sea of people. He decided to sprawl out and relax as he watched the floats and marching bands move through the street in a cheery procession, when he noticed a strange looking float at the end of the line.

The float consisted of mechanical pieces, cogs, gears, and other machinery, and although it was impressive to look at, there was something not quite right about it. Sonic tried to put his finger on it when he saw a grouping of familiar looking orange colored robots gather on the float and wave to the crowds surrounding them. In just that moment he noticed a trap door open and to his complete surprise, Amy was raised up out of the hole in the float. She stood there looking around with a look of utter confusion on her face, and when her eyes stopped and rested on Sonic, a look of unadulterated panic filled her eyes. In a moment, she was running and leaped off of the float before she took off down the street in a hurry. "Hey Amy, wait up!" Sonic called as he leaped off of the roof.

He sped across the street so quickly that no one even noticed and turned down the sidewalk where he had seen Amy go. He blurred down the sidewalk in the direction she took off and just as he passed an alleyway, he saw a pink figure in his peripheral. Coming to an abrupt skidding stop, he turned and followed suit down the alleyway and had to glance around in order to determine which direction she had gone. Usually she was the one doing the chasing; he didn't understand what was wrong with her or what had happened to her. Eggman must have kidnapped her again, but who knew what his current schemes were.

She had looked so utterly terrified when she had laid her eyes on him, which confused him more than anything considering how in love with him she was. Something about that fearful expression on her face hurt him and unsettled him.

It appeared as though he had lost her until he came around another corner and saw Amy run out into one of the few busy streets that hadn't been closed off for the parade. "Amy watch out!" he called after her, but he knew she couldn't hear him because she was too far away. His feet drew him closer and closer as he flew down the pavement until he leaped across the street over the dense traffic. Unfortunately, he had to slow down considerably and take the time to work his way through the crowd because he didn't want to knock anyone over. Jut then he slipped out of the mass of people making their way toward the streets where the parade was occurring. Down the street, he could see the doors to the train station swinging shut, so he blasted along the pavement until he was at the front doors, and he threw them open as he headed inside. When he got to the top of the stairs, he watched as the train cars began to slip out of the station one by one. He scanned each of the cars as they went by, looking for Amy, but she was nowhere to be found.

**Amy**

Still staring down at the floor of the train, Amy breathed a sigh of relief as a couple of tears rolled down her cheek, ultimately falling to the carpet below where they were absorbed. Everyone who was on the train was watching her carefully, not sure as to why she was on the floor. A moment later, she wiped her eyes and stood up before moving into a seat where she would be able to look out the window. Now that she had time to think and process the situation, she glanced down at the small watch-like mechanism around her wrist. She reached out and ran her fingers over it tenderly in case rough treatment might upset it, causing it to explode. The last few hours were hazy to her, and she could not quite remember what had happened to her other than the fact that once again, Eggman had managed to capture her.

But she could recall that this device was bomb set to detonate the moment she was within a certain distance of Sonic. "Killing two birds with one stone," as Eggman had put it simply. She supposed that using this technology over that of a regular bomb would ensure that Sonic was within the vicinity when the explosion occurred, and that she would not be a wasted pawn. However, this was still quite unusually cruel of him to use her to be the end of his blue adversary. If only she had a way that she could let Sonic know to stay away from her until she found a way to get the blasted thing off. She wasn't sure of the specifics of how this device even knew she was close to him, but she figured it had something to do with GPS. He must have been anticipating that Sonic would be at the parade and when the float passed by close enough to him, not only would he and Amy die, but all of the citizens gathered there would die too. Why they didn't restrain her was beyond her, but she was grateful for that small blessing.

As she looked up from her wrist, she looked out the window at the countryside that was blurring by as the train continued its course, wishing that she could just enjoy the beauty, and not be so tense and afraid of the situation at hand. Then she realized she could call Tails at his workshop and inform him about what was going on. Sonic never carried a cell phone, but at least Tails could let Sonic know the next time he saw him. She figured Sonic would be in touch with Tails soon considering that he had just chased her through the city, which by no means was a normal occurrence.

Reaching into the pockets of her dress, she realized that not only was her cell phone gone, but her wallet and all of her money was missing. Eggman must have taken them from her at some point while she was presumably unconscious. Well there was no reason she couldn't ask someone around her to borrow his or her phone. "Excuse me," she started to say to the passenger beside her, when she paused in thought. She realized that she did not have any of her friends' numbers memorized, seeing as there had never been a need before for her to have them memorized. All of their numbers were safely in her contacts list on her phone, which of course she did not have.

"Yes?" the woman asked impatiently as Amy sat there silently pondering her options.

"Oh sorry, never mind," she said sadly as she returned her glance down to her lap. The woman seemed moderately annoyed as she returned her attention to the paperback novel that she was reading.

No money, no phone, and no way to get help were the dilemmas that she would have to contend with currently. Finally the train came to its next stop, and as the doors opened, a swarm of guards burst into the car, grabbing Amy by the wrist and dragging her out of the car. "We got a call from the previous station that a pink hedgehog had forced her way aboard the train. No free rides missy," the guard snapped angrily at her as he pulled her away from the train and toward the elevator. "I've been given instructions to show you the way out."

"You don't understand though, I was running from someone. I had no other choice," Amy explained.

"Just doing my job ma'am, don't make this harder than it has to be."

"_What a jerk!" _Amy thought angrily to herself. When the elevators opened she violently yanked her wrist from his arm and stormed out shouting back to him, "I can find my own way out, thank you!" She finally stormed out of the building and slammed the front doors behind her with a satisfying bang. There was no way she was going to let anyone treat her that way.

But then she took in her surroundings and realized that she had no idea where she was. Her surroundings consisted of some kind of desert city in which there was a mixture of clay and sun dried brick houses, some of which had little overhangs sewn together with what looked like fragments of cloth. Amy decided she would look around and see if she could find someone who could help her get out of here.

Little faces poked out from circular windows as she walked through the streets, but there was nobody outside walking around in the street. It struck her as eerie that everybody was inside in the middle of the day, but maybe there were customs here that she knew nothing about.

The seemingly endless silence was finally broken by the sound of a soft hiss coming from behind the building to her right. Deciding she had nothing to lose, she walked around the side of the building into the darkened alleyway. At first there appeared to be nothing there, but then a loud clang in a pile of garbage gave away its hiding spot. "Come out now," Amy commanded firmly, feeling only a slight twinge of fear.

All of a sudden, something leaped out from the garbage straight at her, scaring her out of her wits in the process. After she let out a small cry of fear as she jerked away, she looked down to see a small grey and white cat staring up at her, and so she straightened and composed herself feeling silly for reacting that way. "I should have figured as much. Aren't you a cutie?" she said as she crouched down so she could pet it, but the cat turned and ran off down the alleyway. "Silly cat."

After coming around the other side of the building again, she decided that she would knock on someone's door and see if they could help her. Just as she approached the first door she saw, she heard the most unnerving sound. In the distance, she could see a large bulge in the sand where something was underneath it, and the bulge was heading in her direction. Bracing herself for impact, she retrieved her pikopiko hammer and held it in front of her as she prepared for attack. The large shape in the sand was moving quite quickly, and once it was within a short distance of her, it leaped out of the sand in her direction. A large scorpion-like creature breached the sand and arched through the air with its long tail end sailing behind it.

"Don't even think about it!" she yelled. It's large maw opened wide enough to either swallow or at the very least bite her, but she never gave it the chance to get close enough because she swung her hammer in one graceful and swift motion that sent it flying. The large creature flew a good distance away from her and slammed into the ground with a great amount of force that resulted in its segmented body falling to pieces. Amy wasn't sure if it was a robot or if it was a living organism. As she approached it cautiously, she heard another sound coming from the same direction that this one had come from. Looking up she could see a whole mass of these creatures leaping up and down, in and out of the sand as they travelled toward her.

They seemed to be stirring up quite the dust storm in their wake, and as a result, only moments later a large dust cloud was blocking the sun out. The wind began to pick up and the dust began to blow in her direction all at once while these creatures were coming her way. "Uh oh," Amy said to herself as her eyes widened in fear of what was to come. The wind and the dust were the first to get to her, and in that instant, she felt the dirt and sand as well as other debris pelting painfully against her skin. She held up her hand to shield her eyes, but it was a hopeless effort. The wind began to get stronger and stronger, and the dust was so thick, she could hardly see the hand she was holding up in front of her face to protect it.

And the noise that those creatures were making was enough to make her feel as though her skin might crawl right off of her bones. Suddenly, a large gust of wind struck her and knocked her from her feet and dragged her a short distance through the sand. Somehow she managed to stop herself from going any further by digging her fingers into the sand beneath her. But as she attempted to stand up again, she felt the wind grab hold of her once again and this time it lifted her completely off the ground, sending her into a swirling tornado of sand and dirt.

**A/N: I want to thank everyone who reviewed the prologue and everyone that added the story either to their favorites or alerts list. It's all of that support that inspired me to continue on with this story, and it showed me that you all are interested. I hope this first chapter was up to par as far as your expectations went, and that it was interesting enough that you all want to continue reading. I'll try to keep the chapters coming as consistently and quickly as I can, but I make no promises. Anyway, thanks again, and I hope that you'll leave me a review and let me know what you thought of this start to a new story.**


	3. The Eideann Desert

Sonic Boom

Chapter 2

**Sonic**

Sonic stood watching the train as it departed from the station, each car would slip out of view one by one, but he kept expecting to see Amy on one of them. Just as he was about to hop onto the tracks and follow the train, he heard a loud boom from outside the station, followed by a chorus of panicked screaming. In one lightning fast motion, he sped out of the station and out onto the pavement in order to see what was going on. Thick black smoke billowed up from the street, and people were pushing and shoving in masses to get away from whatever it was.

Sonic sped up the side of the train station and onto the roof so he could get a better look at the situation. People were running and screaming in complete and utter panic, and as they finally began to clear the sight, Sonic could see flames consuming the remains of one of the floats as well as numerous citizens that had been injured and possibly killed, were scattered all over the blacktop. The blue hedgehog leaped off of the building and onto the street so he could get a better look at the float up close, and so he could see if he could help anyone. He scooped up each of the citizens that were lying on the ground and moved them down the street to a safer location away from where the fire that had broken out.

Sirens could be heard blaring in the distance as well as the roaring of the fire that blazed in the middle of the now deserted street. Sonic hurried over to the float and looked around to see if there was anyone else around, but all he could see was the shrapnel that had scattered from the explosion and the flames and smoke reaching high in the air. It was then that he noticed a large piece of blackened metal by his foot, and so he bent over to retrieve it. As he picked it up, he noticed that it was the melted remains of a cog; much like the ones he had noticed decorating the float that he had seen Amy on earlier that afternoon. He decided that Amy had been a decoy to distract his attention while the float blew up, potentially killing and injuring a number of citizens. There was no way he was going to be able to deal with Eggman single handedly this time.

It was at that moment that he realized it was high time to pay Tails a visit.

**Amy**

Pain and darkness consumed every part of Amy's mind, as she lay trapped within a space completely void of any light. There was a continuous ringing noise that persisted even if she covered her ears, that started out softly and grew louder and louder with each passing second. In just a few moments, every feeling and sensation she was having intensified and overwhelmed her. There was also another feeling that just didn't seem to quite fit in with the pain. It was a fuzzy feeling, as though something soft was rubbing itself against her face, and then her shoulder. The feeling would stop and start at a moments notice, and the sensation seemed to travel to various parts of her body, however she could not see what was causing this.

The swirling mass of feelings that were swimming throughout her were then interrupted by a sharp intense pain in one of her fingers that caused her to open her eyes. Amy found that she was laying face first on a cracked stone surface of some type, and it was smeared with a bit of blood, and as she lifted her head she noticed the tiny kitten that was nibbling on her fingers, the very kitten she had seen earlier behind that house. She withdrew her hand and felt pain reverberate throughout her body like the cruel melody of a demented dirge. The kitten then moved close to her face and rubbed itself against it while it purred.

When she began to attempt to sit up, she felt every bone in her body crack and pop, as well as the soreness and stiffness in her muscles. And as if all of that wasn't enough, the side of her face was crusted with dried blood that flaked and fell to the ground as she moved. The ground was smeared with her dried blood as well, and she finally managed to sit up on her knees so she could analyze her surroundings. She wasn't in the town anymore, but appeared to be lying in some rock structure that reminded her somewhat of a temple because it had a large overhang and some columns stretching down from it to the rocky floor that Amy was lying on. However, it did not look as though someone had made it, it looked more naturally constructed.

Amy pushed her quills out of her face and looked down at the little grey and white kitten that was nestling into her lap. "So now you want to be my friend, huh?" Amy asked it.

The kitten mewed softly and closed its eyes before falling into a motionless state of sleep. Amy scooped up the little kitten and wondered if this was anyone's cat and how it had ended up here with her. It was then that she noticed the leather strap around its neck, a collar she decided, and spun it around so she could look for a nametag. Her fingers found a little metal tag, and she turned it over so she could read it: Clair. "So your name is Clair? That's cute." The kitten opened one of her little blue eyes and looked up at Amy, almost analyzing her before she closed her eye and went back to sleep.

"Guess I can't leave you here." Amy held the kitten in her arms as she forced herself to stand and start walking deeper into the rock structure, which eventually lead her to a series of caves. She glanced into each of the caves and decided that this might be a good place to rest until she recovered her strength and figured out what she was going to do next, when suddenly she heard a grumble from her stomach. She had no idea how long she had been out, but with the way her body had cracked and popped from disuse, and considering how hungry she was, she assumed that she had been out a while.

At that very moment, the sound of the wind was interrupted by the sound of footsteps from inside one of the caves that Amy was passing by. Turning her head, she looked into the dark cave and wondered what was coming her way. Quickly she moved away from the entrance of the cave and started to run while still looking back at the cave. Something cold and hard struck her head and a beautiful display of stars filled her vision as she fell to the ground unconscious once again.

**Sonic**

Tails was sitting at his desk tinkering on a gadget of some sort when Sonic flew through the front door of his workshop. "Hey Sonic," Tails said as he continued to tinker on his newest toy.

"Our old friend Eggman has reared his ugly head yet again," Sonic said as he leaned against the wall closest to the door.

Tails removed the goggles that he was wearing and placed them on his forehead before he looked up at Sonic and said, "What did he do this time?"

"He blew up a float in Station Square during the parade and injured, possibly even killed many civilians," he said.

"And I was so close, yet I wasn't able to stop him," he whispered softly to himself so Tails couldn't hear. Then he straightened his composure before continuing. "What's really odd is that I saw Amy standing atop the float, and the second she saw me, she took off."

"You mean she wasn't taking off after you?"

"No, she took off in the clear other direction. I think she got on the train. Somehow she managed to get away from me."

"Get away from _you_? Now that's the first time I've ever heard of something like that happening!" Tails set down his gadget and looked up at Sonic. "I suppose you've come to ask me for help."

"Buddy, you know me all too well."

**Amy**

Once again, all Amy could see was darkness; however, this time, instead of her entire body aching, only her head throbbed with a dull pain that was giving her a nauseous feeling. Her eyes peeled open, scratching along the surface of her eyes in such a way that she swore she could actually hear them screeching. After blinking several times, her vision focused enough that she was able to make out the bright light emitted from a small campfire and the darkness of night that surrounded it. "Good you're awake," a voice said to her.

"Knuckles?" she asked as she attempted to turn her head only to find that the stiffness in her neck decided that she best not do that.

"You're an idiot, you know that?"

"How dare you-

"Shut up. I'm not the one who ran into a wall, knocking myself unconscious."

Amy gritted her teeth as she swallowed the witty remark building inside her, ready to escape at any moment and unleash its sting upon Knuckles. Finally she rolled over onto her side so she could see the red echidna, only to find that doing so had been a huge mistake. An overwhelming wave of dizziness and nausea engulfed her, threating to make her vomit if she didn't lie completely still.

"Where are we?" she asked after the dizzy spell passed.

"The Eideann Desert, a place just south of the Mystic Ruins. What were you doing out here anyway, Amy?"

"It's none of your business, and besides, I could ask you the same," she said defiantly. She did not like his rude attitude, not one bit.

Knuckles growled to himself for a moment before snapping, "Listen here you brat, I didn't have to save you. I could have left you there to rot and be eaten by the Vipers. You should be grateful that I even bothered to stop and help you out!" Knuckles continued to rant, but by that point, Amy had tuned him out and looked around, realizing that Clair the kitten was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Knuckles, did you happen to see a kitten when you found me?"

Knuckles stopped midsentence and just stared at Amy for a moment, "You didn't listen to a word I just said, did you?"

"I should be grateful, you could have left me to be eaten, bla, bla, bla… so did you see a kitten?"

"Yes. But it took off as soon as I approached you."

"Awww darn, that's too bad. She was really cute. I hope she's ok."

"I'm sure she's fine. So back to where this whole thing started, what were you doing out here in the first place?"

Amy sighed and then began, "It's really a long story. But in short, Eggman kidnapped me, planted me with a bomb that will detonate if I get within a certain distance of Sonic, dumped me in Station Square in the middle of the parade, where Sonic was of course, so I ran, sneaked on the train, got thrown off of the train, got caught up in a dust storm, heard footsteps after I came to, ran into a wall, and well… you know the rest of the story."

"A bomb that is set to detonate if you're near Sonic?"

"Is that the only thing you heard me say?!" Amy sat up and faced away from Knuckles in dejection.

"Let me see the bomb."

Amy turned and craned her head over her shoulder to look at him curiously. If he could get this thing off of her, her life would be at least one million times less stressful than it had been. She stood up and put her hand out as she walked closer to him. He grabbed hold of her hand and turned her wrist over and over again, so he could scan the whole device before he pulled his fist back and smashed it into the bomb in one swift blow, that not only startled and caught her off guard, but hurt her wrist as well. 'Heeeyyy!" she shouted as she jerked her hand away from him. His blow hadn't even left a dent on the tough alloy, deleting every possibility of hope she had that she wouldn't have to walk around with it around her wrist any longer.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I just thought I might be able to break it."

"Break it? You could have killed both of us! You had no idea whether it would detonate from an impact like that or not! How could you risk both our lives like that?"

The apologetic side of Knuckles quickly disappeared, and the tough, angry side of him returned in an instant, "Do you ever shut up?! All you do is whine, and it's really getting on my nerves!"

Amy turned away from him and stood there quietly, staring off into the night sky, wishing that she wasn't in this situation. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as she continued to stand with her back to Knuckles. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, and he said, "I'm sorry. I let my temper get the best of me. You're in a whole lot of trouble right now, and you're stressed out, I understand that. I'm sorry for insulting you and telling you to shut up."

"I just want all this to be over." Amy sank to the ground feeling defeat weighing down on her, an intense overbearing weight that pinned her to that very spot rendering her motionless.

Then she heard him stand up and begin to walk over toward her, coming around so he was standing in front of her. He put his hand down to her, and she looked up at him before taking his hand. "Let me help you," he said.

**A/N: I was going to make this chapter longer than my previous ones, but time hasn't allowed for that, and I really want to get the next chapter up so you all don't lose faith in me. I figured I'd at least put up a little bit more, and hopefully I'll have more time to work on the next one and make it longer. Once again I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this so far, and special thanks to those of you that have reviewed, and to those of you that have added this story to your favorites/alerts list. It's your support that keeps me going! **


	4. Dr Ivy Robotnik

Sonic Boom

Chapter 3

**Amy**

When Amy opened her eyes, a wave of the overwhelming fear and confusion washed over her. Her wrists and ankles were shackled and bolted to a stainless steel countertop that reeked so strongly of antiseptics she thought she might throw up. Craning her head around so she could get a better look at the room, she noticed a figure moving from the shadows in her direction. It was a rather large figure, a very large and round figure to be precise.

"Dr. Eggman," Amy hissed as the obese doctor strolled casually into the lab.

"How nice to see you again Amy Rose," he said. "I suppose you're wondering why you're here."

Just as Amy was about to start yelling at him in anger, he cut her off by calling to someone in the other room. "Oh Ivy dear, you can come in now."

A very tall, slender woman with long hair the same orange copper color as Dr. Eggman's mustache entered, filling the room with a menacing feeling that Amy just could not seem to ignore. The woman was donning a pair of glasses with the lenses darkened out so Amy couldn't see her eyes; similar to the pair that Eggman wore all the time. A long red lab coat lined with little yellow buttons draped around her slender figure like a cloak, and a white collared blouse was matched with a pair of black pants that could be seen peaking out from underneath the lab coat. She was extraordinarily beautiful, but there was just something about her that reminded Amy just a little too much of the fat doctor.

"This is my sister, Dr. Ivy Robotinik. I invited her to come for a visit, and she agreed to help me out with my latest plan to conquer the world, and destroy all of you little pests in the process." The woman scowled at Amy in disgust as she stood at the foot of the counter that Amy was shackled to. "I'll just leave you two be for the moment."

Amy's eyes were glued to Eggman as he walked out of the room, and ordinarily when she was kidnapped she wasn't nearly this terrified, but she couldn't help but feel absolutely frightened with this woman in the room. "My brother told me I could do what I wanted with you. He also told me that you're in love with Sonic, isn't that right?" Her voice was like dark seductive velvet, soothing and threatening all at the same time.

"I don't have any reason to talk to you," the pink hedgehog responded defiantly.

"Oh you don't? Well that's too bad. I have a little gift for you." Ivy pulled out a small remote and pressed one of the many buttons on it, causing the shackle around her right wrist to release. Amy lifted her arm to defend herself, but Ivy was too quick. In an instant the woman had hold of her arm and was placing a device around it.

"Stop it! What are you doing?" Amy screamed at her as she tried to withdraw her arm from her unbreakable grasp. A moment later she heard a click as the device snapped shut around her wrist. "What is that?"

"It's a little gift that will make you and Sonic inseparable." Ivy giggled a little to herself as she forced Amy's arm back into the shackle where it snapped shut once again.

"You liar! Tell me what it is!"

"I wasn't lying, but if you really must know the details, it's a bomb that is set to detonate the moment you set foot within a certain distance of Sonic."

"Wha-

"I really don't have time for your stupid questions. I've done what I came here for and don't intend to waste any more of my precious time. It's been fun Amy," she laughed as she stood up and picked up a scalpel and set it onto the counter next to Amy.

"What are you doing with that?" Amy asked, her eyes widening and her heart rate picking up.

"Oh it's nothing, just a quick, little procedure. It will only hurt for a bit." The woman snapped on a couple of gloves and a surgical mask before bringing the sharp blade against Amy's skin. All Amy could hear was screaming, a high-pitched horrified screaming that hurt her ears. It didn't take her long to realize that it was coming from her own mouth.

Amy awoke from her nightmare in a fit of incessant screaming, gasping, and flailing that seemed as though it lasted for an eternity. Knuckles leaped up from where he was sleeping and ran over to her saying, "What's the matter Amy? Amy speak to me!" For a few moments more she continued to scream uncontrollably until finally she gained control over herself and realized that it had just been a dream. "Amy! Answer me!" Knuckles had hold of her by the shoulders and was shaking her into consciousness.

"I had a nightmare. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak out and wake you up."

Knuckles groaned and dropped his grip on her shoulders before returning to the rock he was sleeping on. "Next time you had better be dying when you scream like that," he snapped before turning over on his side in a huff, facing away from her.

"I said I was sorry," Amy snapped back before laying back down and staring at the dying embers of the campfire that were glowing softly in the moonlight. She sighed and tried to make sense of the dream, had it been a memory or a dream? Goosebumps prickled all over her skin at the thought of the last portion of the dream, and she rubbed her arms to make them go away. After she had gotten away in the city, she hadn't noticed any scars or any blemishes on her skin that would indicate that she had been cut open, but suddenly she really wanted to check. If she were going to do so however, it would have to wait until morning because the campfire was almost out and it would be completely dark if she went anywhere else.

Something about that dream seemed awfully familiar though, and she was almost certain that a majority of that dream had been real, but she didn't want to think about it anymore. Suddenly she realized how exhausted she was and closed her eyes one last time before drifting off to sleep once again.

**Sonic**

Tails was crouched down by the remains of the float that had exploded in Station Square as he used a pair of forceps to sort through some of the debris. "Have you found anything helpful yet? Anything that might help us find out where Eggman or Amy are at?"

"No not yet," he replied as he lifted something up to the sunlight so he could get a better look at it.

"This is such a mess. I can't believe that something like this happened, and I wasn't able to stop it. Eggman has really stooped low this time."

"This really doesn't seem characteristic of Eggman's normal attacks. I'm wondering if maybe he wasn't even the one responsible for it."

"I saw his orange robots on the float though. It had to be him."

"Maybe he sold them to somebody? Or let someone borrow them? I'm not sure Sonic, let me keep studying the debris for clues and then maybe I'll be able to give you an answer."

Sonic began to pace back and forth with his arms folded behind his back. He wished he could do more to help, but he wouldn't have any idea as to what he would be looking for. His thoughts turned to the memories of what had happened here, how one moment, he had just been enjoying the parade, and the next chaos ensued and people got hurt. And that look on Amy's face had been one he had never seen before, not when she was looking at him anyway. She had looked so afraid of him, as though she couldn't get away from him fast enough. Although there were times where she would annoy him and display her affection at inappropriate times, there had always been this rewarding feeling of knowing that someone cared about him that deeply. Hopefully soon enough they would find her, so he could talk to her and find out what was going on. A few moments later Tails said, "I think I might have something."

Sonic burst over to Tails and crouched down beside his friend as the fox opened up a laptop and began to scan whatever was between his forceps. A bright red beam of light shot out of an attachment on the computer, and began to move up and down the salt sized object. A moment later an image popped up on the screen of a large rock formation.

"Basically this is a small solid crystal compound composed of silicon, calcium, oxygen, and iron. The trace of iron would suggest that these sand particles came from the red rocks of the Eideann Desert."

"Then I suppose that is where we are headed next."

**Amy**

When Amy returned from taking her bathroom break first thing when she woke up, she noticed that Knuckles was still asleep and decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to go make sure that she was still in one piece, and that Ivy hadn't done anything to her. She made sure to be as quiet as possible so as to not wake Knuckles up, and she wandered around the side of the nearest rock formation for some privacy. She kept her hands braced against the rock, and she shimmied around the edge of the structure until she realized that there was a drop-off around the other side. Keeping her weight against the rock, she began to move backward and away from the cliff until suddenly she felt rocks give out from underneath her feet.

Before she had the chance to react, she was sliding down the side of the cliff into a jaw shattering free fall. She was squirming around in panic, and she grasped around for anything to grab onto in a desperate attempt to stop herself from falling. Eventually she landed painfully on a rocky ledge that was protruding from the side of the canyon, and collapsed on the ground in defeat. How did she manage to keep hurting herself? She did not understand how she could be so clumsy. Finally she lifted her head only to see the edges of the canyon that narrowed into a large, dark chasm below with no way for her to climb up. Just then she heard some pebbles roll down the canyon from above, and when she looked up they rained down on her face.

Up above, she could see Knuckles climbing down the side of the canyon toward her, once again he was coming to her rescue. She wondered when he would give up on her and leave her behind. When he finally reached her he asked, "Is it even possible for you to stay out of trouble?"

"Apparently trouble likes me."

"Apparently. I need you to wrap your arms around my chest and hang on." Amy did as she was told, and before she even knew what was going on, Knuckles was scaling the cliff with her clinging to his back like a knapsack. It was a very slow and tedious process, but Knuckles never gave up. Fist after fist, he managed to drag her up the side of the canyon along with him, and they were about halfway up the cliff when she slipped and her arms instinctively grabbed him around the neck. He stopped moving and attempted to say something to her that came out as a spurt of small choking noises, Amy tried to move her grasp back down to his chest only to make it worse. When she tried to slide her grasp back down to his chest, she accidentally let go and felt her stomach fly up into her throat as she fell.

She did not get to fall far however, because Knuckles had released one of his arms from the side of the cliff and reached down to grab her wrist. "Hang on," the sound of his voice crackled out of his throat from being choked. He pulled her back up to him and she wrapped her arms around his chest once again, latching onto him like a lost child that had just found her parent. She was petrified from that point on, and could not find it in herself to speak while they scaled the cliff. Fear was reaching a bubbling point inside her, and she fought the urge to let out a scream.

What seemed like an eternity later, Knuckles finally cleared the edge of the cliff with Amy on his back, and they both collapsed on the ground in relief. When Amy finally regained her composure, she said, "I'm sorry Knuckles, I didn't mean to choke you." Instead of saying anything, he waved his arm in dismissal, and Amy took that to be his forgiveness. Her head relaxed against the ground, and she stared up into the sky wondering if she would ever be able to go back to her normal life, a life in which things like this did not happen on a regular basis.

"What on earth were you doing over here?" Knuckles asked finally. His voice still sounded shot, but it was better than it had been.

"I was… I was looking for a place to use the restroom," she lied. Knuckles craned his neck and looked at her over his shoulder skeptically as though he didn't believe her, but she supposed that he decided not to pursue the matter because he dropped the subject.

"I guess we should gather our bearings and get going."

"That's a good idea."

However neither of them made a move to get up at first. Knuckles finally stood up and began to walk away, prompting Amy to get up and follow. As they walked, Amy looked down at the wrist that Knuckles had grabbed when she had fallen, and noticed that there was a small chip in the device around her wrist from where he had grabbed onto her. Suddenly a refreshing wave of hope washed over her that maybe this thing would come off, giving her a newfound strength and creating in her some confidence that maybe everything would be okay after all.

**A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long for me to post (and it's still not very long I know). I'll try to get the next one out faster and make it a little bit longer. And just like always, I hope that you'll leave me a review and let me know what you think of this chapter. I always appreciate them, and I take them into consideration when writing the next chapter. Once again thanks to everyone that has reviewed and added this story to favorites/alerts, I can't tell you enough how much feedback like that inspires me to continue.**


	5. Aranya the Beast

Sonic Boom

Chapter 4

**Amy**

Knuckles walked faster than almost anyone Amy knew with the exception of Sonic of course. His strides were so quick and wide that she could barely keep up with him. As they walked, her thoughts turned to this morning and how she had fallen into a canyon like a total klutz. Amy snapped out of her thoughts in time to realize that she was lagging behind and that she needed to catch up or Knuckles might decide to leave her. She imagined that he was getting really tired of having to save her and protect her time and time again. "Are you coming or what?" he asked impatiently as she hurried along after him. She almost had to keep up a small jog just to stay with him.

"So you never answered the question I asked you yesterday about what you were doing here in this desert in the first place," she said after a while in order to disrupt the perpetual silence that seemed to take over them.

"I was searching for some of the pieces of the master emerald as usual. It seems to be a never-ending chase after them, and once I finally do get my hands on some of the pieces, something always goes wrong, and I either lose them or I have them stolen from me. I'm supposed to be the guardian of the master emerald, some guardian I am. I wasn't even able to protect it in the first place, let alone retrieve the pieces after it shattered."

"Maybe I can help you look for them after this whole ordeal is over."

"That's nice of you to offer, but you wouldn't be help at all because I'm the only one who can sense its presence."

They continued to walk for some time before they came upon a large narrow rock structure that stretched up into the sky. In the distance, Amy swore that she could hear the cries of Vipers, but she decided that she wouldn't think about that now. "What is this?" Knuckles asked as he approached what appeared to be a door that was built into the side of the towering rocky structure. Amy stepped closer to him so she could get a better look at the door, when suddenly she heard the loud screeching of the Vipers, knowing that there was no way she could deny or ignore it this time. "We need to get inside." He stepped closer to the door and threw all of his weight against it, which resulted in the entirety of the door sliding backward and allowing them access. Knuckles grabbed Amy's arm and dragged her inside behind him just as a Viper launched itself out of the sand toward them.

"That was close," Amy said as she wiped a bead of sweat from her brow as she listened to the sound of the viper thrusting its weight against the door again and again.

"Closer than I would have liked," Knuckles commented as he began to scan their surroundings. "Where are we?"

Amy looked around at the walls that were covered in an abundance of shelves that were lined with gadgets and doo-dads of every sort, as well as a variety of machinery that could be seen scattered throughout the room. "Do you think this could be Eggman's current lair?" she asked as she surveyed the room for any kind of clue that would tell her who was residing here.

"It's possible, but the likelihood that we would just stumble onto _his_ lair like this is incredibly low." Knuckles took the lead once again, and Amy following behind him helplessly as she wondered when or if she would get the bomb off of her wrist. Ever since it had been strapped to her, the knowledge that she might die and possibly kill Sonic in the process had been persistently ebbing in the back of her mind. Finally the dark hallway that they had been following came to an end, and lead into a lab of some sort, a lab that seemed uncomfortably familiar to Amy. Her muscles tensed as she began to see the room as it had been when she had been here before, when she had been Eggman's prisoner. It was painfully obvious to her that she had been here before, and now she wanted nothing more than to get out.

"This is definitely Eggman's lair," she said with fear dripping off of every spoken word.

"You sure? How do you know?"

"Because this is where I was when he captured me and when this was attached to my arm," she replied as she lifted up her arm to show him the device around her wrist once again.

"This looks more like a surgery room, not one of Eggman's labs."

The memory of the nightmare she had the previous night sprang violently back into her head, and suddenly she wondered if more had been done to her than just having this bomb strapped to her arm. Sweat began to build at her hairline and proceed to drip down the sides of her face as she unconsciously moved closer to Knuckles. "I know," she said.

"What did he do to you Amy?" Knuckles asked as he turned and looked directly at her. He reached out and put an arm on her shoulder, but she immediately stepped back away from him and out of his grasp.

"I don't know. I don't remember everything. I had a dream about it last night, but I don't know what was real and what was just part of the dream."

"So that's why you were screaming in your sleep last night?" Amy nodded and looked down at the floor in shame, and she could feel her face heating up in embarrassment. She felt so uncomfortable talking about this, and it really bothered her that she couldn't remember everything that had happened while she was here.

"Let's get going. We need to take down this lair and stop Eggman," Amy said as bravely as she could manage. She began to walk away from Knuckles and toward the door as he watched her carefully as though he expected her to react differently.

"Amy-

"I'm fine. Let's just do this and get this stupid thing off my wrist okay?"

"Okay." Knuckles followed Amy as she exited the lab and entered into another dark hallway that sloped down into the abysmal unknown.

**Sonic**

"Tails, do you have any idea where exactly Eggman's base could be?" Sonic asked.

"Not _exactly_. Though I do have an approximate idea based upon the composition of the dirt we found in Station Square."

Sonic followed along behind Tails as the fox took flight toward what appeared to be a series of large rocky structures off in the distance. Sand and dirt flew into the air and trailed along behind Sonic in a whirlwind as he sped through the desert behind his friend. Eventually after a while, they came upon a small rundown village that was completely void of life and any movement whatsoever. They slowed to walking speed as they approached, and noticed that there was a desolate train station up ahead that appeared as though it might still be functioning. Instinctively, Sonic was drawn to the building and lead the way inside. As they had speculated, there were several attendants and other staff wandering around through the building as they attended to their jobs. One of the men that was passing by stopped and turned to Sonic and Tails asking, "Are you two looking for a free ride too? Stupid animals, think they can just ride around a ticket."

"What are you talking about?" Sonic asked.

"A little hedgehog like yourself was trying to take a free ride a while ago."

"Was she pink?"

"Yeah she was. Are you friends with her? Because I won't be having anyone else riding around without a ticket."

"You have nothing to worry about, we won't be riding the train. But could you tell us where she went?"

"I'm not sure. We kicked her off the train, and she stormed right out of the building. I have no idea where she went after that."

"I have a feeling that if we can find Eggman's base, we might figure out where we can find Amy," Tails suggested.

"I think you're right on Tails. Now let's get going."

Sonic followed Tails out of the train station and they were just about to take off when they heard the strangest screeching noise off in the distance. "What was that?" Sonic asked.

"I'm not really sure." Tails spun around as he scanned the land, when he noticed that there were some lumps in the sand on the horizon that were moving in their direction. "Hey Sonic I think you might want to turn around."

The blue hedgehog pivoted around just in time to see the lumps in the sand before a cloud of dust enveloped them and obscured their sight. Sonic braced himself for impact just as the large creatures breached the sand and were coming directly for them. Sonic relished the idea of some excitement, knocking out a few baddies would be fun and a great way to break up the monotony of running around the desert with no exact destination in mind.

In a moment, Sonic leaped into the air and launched into a homing attack that sent him spinning at the face of the creature as it came barreling toward him. The metallic monster crunched beneath the impact, falling to the ground in a broken heap. It squirmed around, trying to attack Sonic and Tails in one last desperate attempt, and just at that moment, more of the creatures came flying out of the sand in their direction. Tails jumped in and began to help Sonic by leaping on the monsters and smashing them with his feet before flying out of reach when they retaliated.

They continued to fight what appeared to be endless waves of monsters when Sonic suddenly heard Tails cry out, and when he turned he could see his friend was being constricted by one of the monsters. "Son-

Tails started to yell out for help when his breath was squeezed out of his lungs by the force of the constricting monster wrapped around his arms and torso. Sonic curled into a ball as he sailed through the air toward his friend, targeting the head of the monster and smashing it to bits when he made contact. His friend was released from the death grip and slipped limply through the gap and to the ground. "Are you okay buddy?" Sonic asked as he fended off the next monster.

"I'm fine." Tails forced himself to stand up and continue the never-ending fight, ignoring the pain coursing throughout his body and fighting off the urge to collapse. "These things just keep coming, is this ever going to end?" he cried out as he lunged at the next one.

"I'm not sure. Maybe they're just a distraction. What do you say we ditch these losers and continue looking for Eggman's base. Maybe these guys can even help lead us to him."

"Good idea." Sonic launched off the nearest creature like a spring board and soared through the air in the opposite direction as Tails spun his tails in a propeller-like fashion, and he took off after him. They sped through the red sands of the desert, leaving the monsters in their dust. As they moved through the sand, they kept their eyes open for anything suspicious that might give them a clue as to where Eggman's base might be hiding. Eventually after a while of running all over the desert like chickens with their heads cut off, they stopped to decide on a more methodical approach to locate the lair.

Just as they were about to start moving once again, Tails noticed a little grayish colored blur moving in his peripheral vision. "What was that?" he asked as he turned his head.

Sonic turned in the direction that Tails was looking and replied, "I didn't see anything."

"I swear I saw something," he said as he started in the direction of whatever it was that he had just seen. Tails sidled around the side of a large rock structure that was bordering a bottomless canyon that seemed to stretch on as far as he could see. Along the side of the canyon he could see where some rocks had come lose as well as a couple of shoe prints in the dirt along the edge.

"What was it?" Sonic asked as he approached Tails. "Whoa…"

"Quite the canyon we've got here. Wait, look at that!" The fox slid down along the side of the canyon until he reached a small ridge that was protruding from the side of the slope, and landed safely on his feet. Sonic was looking down from the top of the canyon, his silhouette surrounded in sunlight so bright Tails couldn't make out his face or any other detailed features. Tails reached up and snagged a small piece of red cloth from a small branch reaching out of the rock, and held it up so Sonic could see it.

"What is it? I can't see it," Sonic said.

Tails flew back up the rocky slope and landed next to Sonic, and held out the small red piece of cloth so he could look at it. "Is that part of Amy's dress?" Sonic asked swallowing the lump in his throat. He reached out and took the cloth from his friend and ran his fingers over it as though he might be able to figure out what had become of Amy by doing so.

"It sure looks like it, I think we're on the right track now."

"Do you think she's down there somewhere?" An uneasiness set over Sonic, something that he didn't feel very often, usually he was always calm, and extraordinarily confident.

"Let's check it out. Maybe Eggman's base is down there somewhere."

"Maybe," Sonic replied uneasily. Tails gave him a strange glance before he slid down the side of the canyon once again, and Sonic leaped down after him, full heartedly hoping that he was going to find Amy soon, and that she was all right.

**Amy**

Knuckles and Amy continued through the poorly lit corridor, holding onto the wall as they went because it was so hard to see. Amy's arm brushed against something in the darkness, startling her and causing her to leap backward. "What is it?" Knuckles asked her.

"I don't think it was anything, I just startled myself."

They proceeded to continue their trek through the darkness, when suddenly there was the sound of something shifting around behind them. Amy stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around to glance at Knuckles and could barely make out his form when she realized that he was turning around as well. Suddenly there was a loud growl coming from where Amy had brushed her arm on something, and an overwhelming cloud of fear began to envelop her. She swallowed loudly and began to back away from the noise, feeling for her Piko Piko hammer, and readying herself for a potential fight.

"Come on! Give me your best shot!" Knuckles shouted at whatever was hiding in the darkness. There was a huge gust of air paired with an ear-shattering roar that nearly knocked them off their feet, and sent Knuckles running in Amy's direction. "Never mind, it's time to go," he shouted as he grabbed Amy's arm. He dragged her along behind him, stumbling and blundering through the darkness in an attempt to find any exit, any sort of door. Amy made the mistake of looking behind her and could see a pair of yellow eyes moving rapidly through the darkness after them. Amy let out a cry and turned her head back around as Knuckles sped through the hallway, holding onto her arm so tightly her hand started to tingle.

"What is that?" she yelled over the loud sound of the roaring monster following behind them.

"I have no idea! Now shut up and run!" Amy started into a full out sprint that helped her keep up with Knuckles, but he didn't let go of her arm. Finally, she felt him come to an abrupt stop, and pound open a door before they were showered with a blinding bright light that made Amy's eyes hurt. Knuckles let go of her arm and slid around so he was facing the doorway that they had just come out of. "Now that I have some light, come face me!" Amy rolled her eyes. Oh sure, now that the lights were on, his courage had suddenly returned.

Amy turned and hesitantly watched the doorway, expecting some horrible monster from her nightmares to leap out of the pitch-black darkness and attack them, but it never happened. She could hear the growling, but the monster wouldn't step out of the darkness. "Not so tough anymore are you!" Knuckles yelled at it. Glancing down at the floor, Amy noticed that there was something quite strange about the composition of the floor tiles that they were standing on. It was then that Amy realized that they were standing on a trapdoor. "Knuckles jump!" she shouted just as the door gave way sending both of them falling into more darkness.

There was a loud gross splattering noise that resulted from their landing, and Amy felt the wetness and gooeyness of the substance that they had fallen into. It was everywhere and reminded Amy somewhat of a spider web, but a very large spider web that spanned the entire distance of the large room that they were in. There was an eerie purple glow that was coming from some unseen source, bathing the room in a small amount of colored light that illuminated the fibers of the goo that was spanning the length of the room. It draped from each wall and corner of the room to the other like party decorations that had been placed randomly.

When Amy went to move her arm, she realized that it was stuck to the goo, and she was so tangled up in it that she couldn't move at all. She turned and looked to see where Knuckles had landed, and could see that he had almost managed to save himself. He had latched onto the wall in climbing position, but his fists, torso, and feet had managed to get tangled in the strange goo. "Are you okay Knuckles?" she asked.

"I'm fine, just stuck."

"Yeah me too. What do we do now?"

"I'm not sure, I'm thinking." Amy could feel her feet dangling and she wondered how high off the ground she was, and what this place was, because it sure didn't seem like a trap that was characteristic of Eggman. Suddenly there was movement from the fibers, Amy began to bounce around in the air as the fibers moved, creating quite the sensation of height. There was a horrifying slapping sound as though someone was smacking their lips, causing Amy's eyes to widen in fear as she searched around the room for the source of that terrible sound. "What was that? Knuckles asked as he attempted to turn his head away from the wall so he could see. Because he was plastered to the wall facing forward, he wasn't able to turn very far in order to see.

"I don't know. But I don't think we want to find out," Amy said still staring off into the darkness, looking for whatever horror was just about to reveal itself. And it was at that moment that she saw it, the horrible violet colored eyes looking out of a cave on the other side of the room. Eight large purple eyes that were brightly lit as though they were lights could be seen on its head and eight large legs were protruding from its gigantic body. Amy opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped her lips.

**A/N: Thank you all very much for reading my story, I hope it continues to be as interesting and enjoyable to read as it is for me to write. I'd like to especially thank xXME AGAINST THE WORLDXx and YumeTakato for the continuous support. And thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! **


	6. Gotta Go Faster, Faster, Faster, Faster,

Sonic Boom

Chapter 5

**Amy**

A shrill scream emerged from where the giant spider-looking creature was lurking in the webs, filling the room with horrifying echoes. Pure terror reverberated throughout Amy's entire being, echoing throughout every bone in her entire body causing her to tremble in silence. "What… what was that?" Knuckles asked in a fear that only seemed to mirror her own. Glancing up at him wordlessly, she couldn't imagine how he was feeling being unable to see what was happening around him, not only because he was stuck to the wall, but also because of how poorly lit the room was.

"Amy? What was that?" he asked again, slightly more panicked.

Amy could feel the bouncing of the web fibers as the creature slowly began to make its way to them. Suddenly there was a bout of menacing laughter that filled the cavern and bounced around causing it to sound even more terrifying if, in fact, that was even possible. A woman's voice began to speak, however Amy was unable to pinpoint her exact location, or even where the sound was coming from. "I see that you've met my wonderful Aranya the Beast. She is quite lovely isn't she?" Amy recognized Ivy's voice, sending chills down her spine.

"Who are you? Come out here and face me!" Knuckles shouted in a mixture of fear and anger.

"Well I won't be facing you personally, but Aranya here will be more than happy to accept that challenge." As if this whole scene had been rehearsed, and that was a cue, Aranya screeched. "I was quite disappointed that you escaped earlier, Amy Rose, but no matter, this is just as interesting to watch."

Amy could hear the click of the woman's boots as she left the room, leaving them to be eaten by her spider creation. "Who was that?" Knuckles asked.

"That's Eggman's sister, Ivy Robotnik."

"She's even crazier and evil than Eggman, if that's even possible."

In the darkness, Amy could see Aranya's purple eyes getting closer and closer to her, making her more and more uneasy. She began to struggle in the web in an attempt to free herself, only to find that she was tangling herself up more. "I can't get free! What do we do?" she asked.

"I just need to free one of my fists, and I think I can get free."

"Well good luck with that, this stuff is really sticky." As Amy continued to struggle and squirm, she could see that Aranya was getting uncomfortably close, which made the fibers of the web shake and stiffen faster with each step. Before Amy knew it, Aranya was standing right in front of her, looking down at her with a hunger that was beyond any terror that Amy had ever experienced before. She closed her eyes and pulled her face away as though that would allow her to escape this horrible fate. Just when Amy had decided that there was no way that she was going to survive this time, there was a flame that sparked from beneath her, igniting not only the web, but burning Aranya's underside causing her to cry out and scurry back away from Amy.

In the corner of her eye, Amy could see Knuckles trying his hardest to free himself. The fire began to spread across the web, illuminating the room in the process, and weakening the sticky goo. The heat could be felt radiating off the flames as they engulfed the sticky goo that had once been all over the room. Finally, the fire weakened the web enough that Amy was able to fall, and she swung in a downward arc that sent her flying into the cold brick floor below. It must have been a good ten-foot drop if not more. A few moments later, Knuckles fell from the wall and landed beside her on his back with a loud thud that made Amy cringe. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, are you?"

"Yeah. How did that happen?" Amy sat up and looked around the burning room, and could see a figure with two pointy ears on the other side of the room. The figure moved closer, and Amy could see that it was a tall slender gray cat with bright blue eyes that struck Amy as strangely familiar even though she was positive that she had never met a cat like this before. She was wearing a short purple dress and a tall pointy witch hat as though she were going trick-or-treating, and not hanging out in some villain's lair.

"I'm Clair the Cat," she introduced herself.

"Were you the one who saved us?"

"Yep." She grinned from ear to ear as though she were a child that was getting praised for a good deed. Or maybe it was more like a Cheshire grin she decided.

"Well thank you. We can't thank you enough."

"No problem, it's the least I could do. Now we should probably get out of here while this fire burns out." Clair turned and led the way out.

**Sonic**

Tails slid down along a rocky slope, immersing him further into the darkness as he did so. Sonic could barely see as it was. They had slid down so far into the canyon that the sun was unable to reach these depths, making it so dark down there that Sonic realized that they should have brought some sort of light source. "Look Sonic!" Tails called out from below. The blue hedgehog squinted and glanced around, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness, so he could see what his friend was talking about. He put his hands out to feel around only to have his arm brush against something smooth, cold, and metallic. The anomalous sensation caught him slightly off guard causing him to slightly lose his balance and almost fall over.

"It's a door," Tails said finally. He reached out and took Sonic's arm and dragged him into a corridor leading to a staircase that seemed to span on into blackness forever. Once Sonic was inside, Tails closed the door behind them and turned to join his friend. Thankfully the long hallway was lit well enough to see, and the staircase was lined with blue flaming torches that almost gave off a calming atmosphere if it weren't for the fact that they were in some strange, dark structure in the bottom of a canyon. But what fun was his life without experiences like these?

The two friends hurried up the staircase and into another corridor that was lined with an uncountable number of barred prison doors. "What is this place?" Tails asked. As though in response to his question, there was a strange groan that emanated from one of the doors nearest to them, sending both Sonic and Tails on edge. As they edged closer to the door, there was an arm that shot out from the cage across the hall that reached out and grabbed one of Tails' tails. "Aaahhhh!" he cried as he leaped back into Sonic nearly knocking both of them over.

The boney arm looked as though the flesh was melting right off of it, and the fingernails were so long and yellow that they might as well be considered claws. From inside the cage, there were two yellow eyes peering back at them hungrily, and it made a strange gurgling sound that was absolutely revolting. "This looks like some kind of prison for monsters. But who would create such a place?" Sonic asked.

"I have no idea, but I really want to get out of here, Sonic. This place gives me the creeps."

Sonic took Tails' arm and took off through the long corridor, dodging passed any appendages that reached out of the cages to grab them. The whole area echoed with the cries, screeches, groans, and moans of all of the creatures, filling both Sonic and Tails with a dread and an uneasiness that set them both on edge. Once they were passed the cages, Sonic let go of Tails and they started up the next staircase.

Staircase after staircase, they trekked through the strange, poorly lit labyrinth wondering if it would ever come to an end. Several staircases later, they came upon a corridor with a lone door on the right side of the hall. They approached the door and glanced through the tiny window only to see a strange hospital room. "What twisted freak owns this place?" Sonic asked. He reached out and opened the door slowly in case something leaped out and attacked him. Relief settled over him when the room remained motionless and silent. In front of him was a neat hospital room with a bed lying behind a drawn curtain, cabinets and shelves lined with surgical equipment, and a cabinet devoted to an assortment of chemicals that he had never heard of. Tails reluctantly followed him into the room, looking around nervously as though something might jump out at him.

There was a pile of white towels stained with red (presumably blood) liquid lying inside of what looked like a clothes hamper. Sonic began looking through all of the cabinets and drawers for any sort of clue that would tell him who was residing in this awful place. Eventually, he came across a tiny scrap of paper that read: Pathologist Dr. Ivy Robotnik. Eggman was involved in this? This seemed too weird, too twisted for the fat old doctor to have his hands in, but nonetheless his last name was on this card. "Look Tails."

Tails reached out and took the card and asked, "Did they mean '_Ivo_ Robotnik'?"

"I'm guessing so."

Sonic put the paper back and was leading Tails out of the lab when he heard a pair of familiar voices from the air vent above. It was muffled, so he couldn't make out what they were saying, but when he got closer he could make out the sounds of the voices of Amy and Knuckles. "Hey Tails, listen!"

Tails joined Sonic next to the vent and his ears perked up when he heard the voices too. "Amy and Knuckles! Let's go find them!"

They hurried out of the lab and up the next staircase which, lead to another staircase, followed by another staircase and so on and so on. Eventually they came upon a giant room that was filled with a variety of doors that led in every which way. Tails and Sonic glanced at each other in uncertainty. "Which door?" Tails asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine buddy."

**Amy**

Knuckles and Amy had been following Clair around for what seemed like ages, wandering around in circles again and again until Amy started to question Clair's sense of direction. Eventually they came upon a gigantic door that was lined with a strange golden snake design that wrapped around the frame and ended at the head of the snake, which was the doorknob. Clair stopped in front of the door and tapped it with a wand that she pulled out of nowhere, as though that would be enough to make the door open. It did not surprise Amy or Knuckles when the door did not budge.

"It looks like we need a key of some sort. I think this is where the doctors reside," Clair said.

"Well I guess this is your time to prove to me your treasure hunting skills Knuckles," Amy said with a grin.

He groaned to himself and turned to start walking away wordlessly when all of a sudden he came to a stop. "What's wrong?" Clair and Amy asked him.

"I thought I heard something. But I don't see anything." He shrugged his shoulders and continued down the path that he had started on originally when they all heard a voice calling out from the darkness.

"Amy? Knuckles? Are you guys down here?" The sound of Tails' voice was almost relief until they heard Sonic's voice join in.

"Sonic stop!" Knuckles called out.

"Knuckles?" Sonic called back, this time closer.

Amy felt sweat dripping down her face in a mix of anticipation and utter fear because she knew that she was going to have to run once again. She heard the quick footsteps down the hall and glanced back at Clair only to find that she was gone. In an instant, Amy took off in the direction Knuckles had started in hearing Sonic's footsteps getting closer. She ran as hard as she possibly could manage, and could hear Knuckles shout at Sonic, "Sonic stop!" She heard a loud tumble assuming that Knuckles had attempted to tackle Sonic, but she did not look back.

She had to get away. If Sonic caught her, all four of them may die now, and it would be all her fault. Her feet moved beneath her at an intense speed, and her breathing increased so much that she was almost panting. "Amy quit running! Why are you running away from me?" Sonic called out from behind her. He was actually still quite a ways behind her, but she knew he would catch her if she didn't figure something out fast.

**Sonic**

Sonic and Tails had been wandering around the base for what seemed like ages, calling out and yelling for Amy and Knuckles. For a while it seemed utterly hopeless, but a while later, their effort was rewarded.

"Amy? Knuckles? Are you guys down there?" Tails called out.

Sonic shouted too, and all of a sudden he heard Knuckles call back, "Sonic stop!"

"Knuckles?" He wondered what could have happened; maybe one of them had gotten hurt. But why would Knuckles be telling him to stop? Wouldn't he want his help? As he and Tails moved closer he could make out Amy and Knuckles in the distance, and now he would finally get his answers.

He burst forward, but as he got closer he noticed that Amy was running away again. "Sonic stop!" Knuckles shouted at him as he leaped out and tackled Sonic to the ground. He slid to the ground, rolled, and called out after Amy, but she did not seem to hear him. Knuckles was on top of him pinning him to the ground.

In the direction that Amy was running he could see something lurking around in the dark corners of the hall, he had to get to her before whatever was over there got to her. "Sorry Knucklehead, but I have to save Amy," he knocked Knuckles off of him and took off down the hall after her. He knew he would be able to catch her; the problem would just be catching her before whatever he had seen did. "Amy quit running! Why are you running away from me?"

**Amy**

Tears began to stream in her eyes because she knew that there was no outrunning him this time in this confined corridor. He would catch her, and they would both die in a fiery explosion. Suddenly she cried out as firmly as she possibly could in this state, "SONIC, STOP WHERE YOU ARE!"

Surprisingly, he came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the hall, a good distance away from her, so she would have to shout to him. Even though she was so far away from him, she swore she could see confusion and tinge of sadness in his facial expression. "Sonic you have to stay away from me!" She held up her arm with the bomb snapped around it and called out, "I have a-

Suddenly the floor beneath her dropped out as it had when she and Knuckles had fallen through the trap door earlier, and she was falling into the darkness once again.

In the distance she could hear Sonic calling her name, but she desperately hoped that he wouldn't jump down after her.


	7. Rolling Around at the Speed of Sound

Sonic Boom

Chapter 6

**Sonic**

"Amyyyyy!" Sonic called as he sprinted down the hallway after her at ridiculously high speeds. He watched as trap door flew open beneath her and suddenly she was gone from his view. He leaped through the air in an attempt to follow her down through the trap door, but just as he was falling through the trap door after her, someone grabbed his leg and dragged him back out. Turning around in a mixture of anger and surprise, he saw that Knuckles had a hold of his leg, and Tails was standing alongside him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Knuckles?" Sonic barked at him.

"I'm stopping you from making a huge mistake that would kill both you and Amy."

"What are you talking about? Let me go! I have to save her!" He was about to go into a spin dash to escape him when Tails spoke.

"Sonic, you have to listen to him."

The trap door closed as Knuckles finished pulling Sonic up, and he kicked at the echidna to get him to release his hold on his leg. He stood up and looked at Tails, and then shifted and hardened his gaze at Knuckles. "Tell me what's going on."

"Amy has a bomb strapped to her arm that is set to detonate if you get within a certain distance of her." For the next few minutes, Knuckles recapped everything that had happened since had had run into Amy, and an expression of acknowledgment and understanding crossed Sonic's face. Finally he understood why she had been running away from him all this time and had been acting so strange. Everything made sense now. But now there was the problem of how to save her without killing them both.

**Amy**

When Amy opened her eyes, she could see that she was trapped inside some kind of glass capsule, and her wrists and ankles were being held in place by cold steel restraints. Glancing around she could see Ivy moving around the lab, gathering up various tools and gadgets, horrifying instruments that made Amy anxious and terrified. When Ivy looked over her way, she said, "Oh you're awake. I do hope you had a nice nap."

"What are you planning to do to me?"

"Oh nothing special really, just a simple routine procedure. You managed to avoid playing into my scheme with the bomb, but this plan will surely work. I know it will!" There was madness in the woman's voice that sent violent chills up and down Amy's spine.

The mad scientist finally walked over and stood in front of Amy, a surgical mask around her mouth, and some kind of saw was in her right hand. Fear finally overcame Amy, and she opened her mouth to scream, only to have no sound escape her lips. The glass covering of the capsule slid open, and suddenly pure terror that Amy had never felt before filled her entire being until it overflowed and spilled out in a horrible shrill scream that echoed throughout the lab.

Suddenly there was a bright light, a blinding red light that filled the entire lab like an explosion of some sort. Amy assumed that her brain was failing her at this point, and that she was just hallucinating, but in an instant she could feel heat warming the room to an incredible temperature. Ivy opened her mouth and screamed in agony as she turned around to face something that Amy could not see. Flames licked at Ivy's lab coat, burning it away into ash as it spread all over her body. Immediately the woman ripped off her lab coat and threw it across the room as she lunged at whoever was attacking her.

There was a slight buzzing in Amy's head as the fear began to subside slightly, making her thoughts only slightly more discernable. The mad scientist threw the saw in her hand at the figure on the other side of the room and made a run for the exit, nearly knocking over a table covered in tools on her way out. Amy turned her head to look and see who her rescuer was and heard the sound of her voice calling out to her from across the room. "Amy, are you okay?" The gray cat from earlier who called herself Clair walked over to the capsule and pressed a button that released Amy, and she nearly fell to the floor in a heap when Clair reached out and caught her. "That was a close one. I was almost too late! Can you walk?"

The world was spinning, but somehow she managed to right herself and stand up on her own. "Yeah I'm fine. I can walk. Thank you."

"Don't mention it! It's what I do!" Clair said with unnecessary cheerfulness. "Oh here, you might want to put your dress back on. I promise I won't watch." Amy looked down at herself to see that she was wearing some kind of hospital gown. Disgust quickly filled her mind when she realized that Ivy had undressed and redressed her, but now was not the time to contemplate the sick mind of their enemy. Quickly she grabbed her dress off the table, slipped into it, and slid on her boots while Clair was facing the wall. Once she was dressed Clair took her hand and began to lead her out of the lab and down the hall.

"This is the second time that you've saved me. Thanks Clair."

"It's really no problem. Saving people is what I was born to do."

This girl was very kind, and Amy very greatly appreciated all she had done for her, but there was still something very odd about her. She supposed that her purple witch costume was what really came off as truly odd and out of place. As Amy rubbed her hand up and down her arm, she realized when she came to her wrist that the bomb was still on her arm much to her misfortune. When she had been restrained in the capsule, she couldn't feel it anymore and had assumed that Ivy had taken it off. "Do you think you could help me take this off?"

Clair turned around and looked at her wrist and took it in her hands so she could get a better look at it. After a few moments of pondering over the mechanism, she finally released her arm and said, "I think I can, but I'll need you to come with me to the Mystic Ruins."

**Sonic**

"Do you hear that?" Tails asked, his ears perking up slightly.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails had all been running around the labyrinth for what seemed like hours when suddenly Tails had stopped them. "What is it?" Knuckles asked, pausing and trying to listen for himself.

There was a quiet muffled sound coming from one of the broom closets down the hall that caught all of their attention. Sonic and Knuckles followed Tails down the corridor, and he when he opened the door, they were all shocked to find a tied up Dr. Eggman who had been crammed into the tiny broom closet. Sonic reached down and ripped out the gag that had been stuffed in the doctor's mouth and tossed it away before Knuckles asked, "What happened to you?"

Eggman struggled a little as he tried to get out of the closet, and instead only managed to roll himself onto his side. "My sister locked me in this closet and has taken over my lab. When I told her that I didn't want her help anymore and asked her to leave, she became very angry, tied me up, and locked me in here. You have to stop her! She's planning to turn the entire world into mutant brain controlled monsters!"

"Do you know where she is?"

"She was planning to take the gas that she developed up to a mountain in the Mystic Ruins for dispersal."

"No time to waste, let's go!" Sonic said as he started to take off down the hall with Knuckles and Tails flanking him.

"Wait! Sonic! Could you please untie me first? Sonic? Soniiiiiic!" Eggman called after them only to realize that they had already left.

**Amy**

Trees blurred by as Amy stared out the window of the train as it passed through the countryside. Clair sat across from her, passing the time by knitting a red scarf of some sort, quietly humming a tune to herself. Finally Amy grew bored of just staring out the window and asked Clair, "So who are you exactly? Some sort of cosplaying superhero?"

Clair didn't look up from her scarf and answered, "I'm a witch," she said.

"A witch? No way! So that was magic that you used to save me?"

"I have a lot of different abilities, but fire is my specialty. I was born from a line of very powerful witches that have existed in secret for ages."

"So if it's such a secret, why are you dressed like a witch?"

"Others usually assume that I'm just some silly little girl who likes to play dress-up. And I guess in reality that's what I am. But I also just enjoy being myself, and dressing how I want."

Amy looked at Clair, and for the first time since she had met her, she realized that there was more to her than meets the eye. She paused for a few moments before turning back to the window and asking, "So where exactly are we going?"

"I have some family that lives in the Mystic Ruins that can help you get that thing off your arm."

"It's very kind of you to go out of your way to help me. Thank you very much."

"Well I'm not exactly going out of my way. I have some unfinished business to take care of there as well."

"Oh really? What kind of unfini-

Suddenly the train lurched, and a horrible ear shattering noise filled the car causing them to reach up and cover their ears. People around them began to scream and panic as they jumped up from their seats and ran around as though they could find an exit from the moving train. The train began to tip sideways, and Amy could see sparks flying from all directions outside the window, bouncing around like teeny-tiny demon children. The sound was so loud, she could barely hear herself think, and she could feel her own fear and panic attempting to take over. Clair stood up and took Amy's hand as she began to run toward the caboose of the train. Unfortunately, they were not quick enough, and the train finally began to tip completely onto its side, throwing the two girls forcefully against the window causing it to shatter into a million little glass shards.

Almost immediately, they realized that the train was falling over into a large canyon, and that they were not going to have any other choice but to go with it. Clair attempted to grab on to the window sill that was empty of most of its glass with her available hand, holding onto Amy's hand with the other. They began to slide out the window, and Clair was still holding on, hanging there in midair with Amy hanging onto her hand. She tried to pull Amy up with her and crawl back into the train car, but the velocity of the train falling over was so great that she lost her grip, sending them falling into the depths below.

**Sonic**

"The train station is closed?" Tails exclaimed as he stood in front of the train station in the Eideann Desert looking at the sign on the door.

"That's really odd. It was open earlier when we passed by," Sonic said scratching his head.

"So what are we going to do now?" Tails asked.

"We go by foot," Sonic said cheerfully.

"Alright, let's go then. No time to waste," Tails replied. Knuckles groaned, and turned around to face them only to find that they had already gone.

"Hey wait! Don't leave me behind!" Knuckles shouted as he took off in the direction of the Mystic Ruins.

Sonic sped on with Tails flying close behind him, and eventually Knuckles was able to catch up, only because Sonic wasn't going full speed. "Thanks for leaving me behind you two!" he shouted.

"Sorry Knuckles, we don't have time to wait around for slow pokes," Sonic responded.

"Who are you calling a slow poke?! I'll-

"Hey guys! Look!" Tails said as he came to a stop and pointed. Knuckles and Sonic both came to a complete stop behind him and looked in the direction that he was pointing. In the distance there was thick, black billowing smoke spiraling up from some unseen source.

"Is it a fire?" Knuckles asked.

"I'm not sure, let's go check it out," Sonic called as he took off in the direction of the smoke. Tails didn't hesitate to follow him, and eventually Knuckles trailed along behind them. It wasn't long before they were finally close enough to see what was going on. There was a train track that was covered in some kind of thick green goop, and some of the train track had been torn and was hanging down into the depths of the canyon beside it. Suddenly, two gigantic, long, spindly legs popped up over the edge of the canyon, landing on the ground with a reverberating thump. The ground shook, and Sonic and Knuckles almost fell over.

"What is that?" Tails asked.

Two more legs followed, and then four more, and then a large black body appeared in view, and lots of glowing purple eyes looked back at them. Finally the entire creature emerged from the canyon, and they were looking upon a larger than life mutant spider. "So we meet again Aranya!" Knuckles called to the spider.

"What are you talking about? You've seen that thing before?" Sonic asked as he turned his head to glance at Knuckles.

"That's one of Dr. Ivy Robotnik's creations. It tried to attack Amy, and I back at Eggman's base, and I've got a score to settle with her." Knuckles let out a loud battle cry as he charged at the oversized spider. He leaped through the air in one swift glide and smashed his fist into the creature's face. She cried out and flinched backward away from Knuckles, nearly knocking herself off into the canyon, but managed to right herself in time and retaliate with a shrill, piercing cry that hurt their ears. "Is that all you've got?" He threw himself at her again, and it didn't take long for Sonic and Tails to jump in. Tails took Sonic's hand and flew off the ground a bit before spinning around and swinging Sonic in the direction of Aranya. Sonic curled into a ball and began a spin dash as he flew into her, sending her falling backward into the canyon.

"Take that!" he shouted triumphantly as he landed on his feet, and the large spider fell down into the darkness.

Suddenly, smaller black spiders the size of a medium sized dog began to crawl up out of the canyon, tens, and then hundreds, were swarming out of the darkness, all of them headed after the trio. "What the-

"There's so many of them!" Tails cried in astonishment. Knuckles began to punch at each one that came at him. His fist would splatter each of them in one hit, but there were so many that he was quickly becoming overwhelmed. Tails began hacking and slashing with the power of his tails, and Sonic was bouncing around from spider to spider using his homing attack. No matter how many they seemed to destroy, the numbers did not seem to decrease, and more and more of the spiders continued to crawl up out of the canyon. There were just too many to deal with, especially when it was very obvious that some kind of accident had occurred here, and there were probably people down in that canyon that needed help.

And just to make things worse, Aranya managed to climb back up out of the canyon unscathed. Just as she was making her way back onto the flat ground, there was an aircraft that flew into view. Knuckles looked up and could see Ivy sitting in it. "Oh look at the mess you three are making! Don't you know better than to break other people's toys? Tsk tsk," came her booming voice over the megaphone installed on her aircraft. "You three are so rude. I think you deserve to be punished."

A small hatch in the bottom of her aircraft opened up, and released a pink mass that collapsed in a sad heap to the ground. "Amy, it's time to wake up!" Ivy shouted. All of a sudden the body that was lying on the ground came to life, and stood up in one swift motion that was very graceful, but also far from natural. There stood their pink hedgehog friend, wearing her typical red dress, red headband, red boots with a white stripe down the middle, and her golden bracelet cuffs. Her eyes were her usual green, but they looked very strange, as though they were empty and dead.

"Amy?" Tails asked in shock.

"What did you do to her?" Sonic shouted angrily at Ivy. The woman ignored them and began to laugh menacingly for a few moments before speaking again.

When she finally composed herself, she yelled, "Kill them Amy!" Her lifeless eyes suddenly sparked to life with an intent focus to kill.

Amy came running straight at Sonic with her hammer held in her arms like a baseball bat, ready to swing the moment he came within the right distance. He quickly dodged her swing, and could see out of the corner of his eyes that Knuckles was still fending off the smaller spiders. "Tails, take care of the big spider, I'll deal with Amy!" he called to his friend as he sideswiped another swing.

"Got it!" Tails said as he took off in the direction of Aranya. Sonic turned back to the situation at hand and dodged another violent yet precise swing. He could see Ivy's ship take off in the direction of the Mystic Ruins, and an intense feeling of frustration and helplessness began to set in.

"Amy, you have to stop! She's probably put you under some kind of mind control! You have to snap out of it!"

A frustrated and angry grunt escaped from her as she swung at him yet again. Then she leaped up over him and tried to come down on top of him. Sonic noticed that she was moving a lot faster than she usually did, and he wondered why that was. All of a sudden he heard a loud cry from Tails, lost his focus, and felt the wrath of Amy's hammer slam hard into the side of his head. The force was enough to knock him off his feet and send him flying. He quickly realized though, that he had been standing too close to the canyon next to the destroyed train tracks and found himself falling into the darkness below.

**A/N: I sincerely apologize for the long delay on this chapter. I know I haven't been very good about getting the chapters up, but I hope that you all will still continue to read this. I do plan to finish it, so just know that I haven't forgotten about it. I've just been very busy with schoolwork, but hopefully once my finals are over I will be able to focus on writing and finish this up. Thanks to everyone that has stuck out the long wait and will continue to read.**


	8. I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight

Sonic Boom

Chapter 7

**Sonic**

When Sonic came to, he realized that he was lying on his back looking up into complete darkness. After fumbling around in the darkness for a few moments he was able to conclude that he was trapped in some kind of rocky cavern. The pitch-black darkness made it completely impossible to see anything whatsoever, and unfortunately he did not have any source of light. Reaching around blindly in the darkness, he began to crawl on his hands and knees, feeling around as he went. The rocks felt cool beneath his palms as he moved around, and he began to wonder how he had blacked out, or how he had managed a fall like that without hurting himself. It was beyond him, but he was very grateful that he was still in one piece.

After crawling around in the darkness for a while without any real sense of direction, he put his hand on something soft and warm by mistake. Quickly he removed his hand and started to feel around again wondering what he had just touched. A few moments of blundering around in the darkness later, he set his hand down in something warm and wet. His imagination got the best of him, and he let out a quiet startled gasp. "Hello?" he called, wondering if there was someone down there with him. When there was no answer, he decided to move on, hoping that his imagination was just playing tricks on him. Hopefully if he continued to blunder around for a while, he would find a way out, but until then he would have to take his sweet time crawling through the darkness.

He hated being so slow, but if he were to run around without being able to see, surely he would trip and fall over something and potentially hurt himself and make this situation much worse than it already was. If he didn't figure something out soon, he was going to be trapped down here for a long time, possibly forever.

**Amy**

Amy's eyes slid open slowly only to find that she couldn't see a thing. It was as though she hadn't really even opened her eyes at all, but she knew that she had. She expected to feel pain, but felt none, and realized that for some reason she could not feel her legs. As she tried to sit up, she put her hand in a puddle of thick warm liquid that had pooled around her lower half. Her other arm was lying under a rock, and she hoped desperately she hadn't broken it. Her heart began to speed up a little in anticipation as she slid her arm out from under the rock, and used her good arm to push herself up and sit against a nearby rock. Almost instantly she realized that her arm was broken. Using her good arm she began to probe and feel her legs with her hands. When she reached her knee, she felt something wet and hard, and then she went completely still. She held her breath as she slid her hand down the rest of the way, and soon realized that her leg was twisted in a very unnatural angle.

She slid her hand back up her leg to the hard mass that was protruding from her knee, realizing that her bone was poking out of the skin. A loud blood-curdling scream escaped her lips, and the scream seemed to drag on forever as she tried to get a grip of herself. How could she not feel any of the pain? Was she going to die down here this way? Eventually she stopped screaming, and heard a voice call out to her. "Amy?" The voice sounded genuinely surprised and concerned, and she recognized it instantly.

"Sonic?" she called out wondering if hearing his voice had just been a hallucination. Then she realized the magnitude of the situation and grabbed her wrist to feel for the bomb, only to find that it was gone. "Stay away! I don't want to detonate my bomb." Tears began to stream down her face, and she couldn't think of another time in her life where she was so miserable. She stifled a sob, and began feeling around on the ground for the bomb, and eventually her hands came across metal shards and pieces that were strewn all over the ground.

"Amy are you ok?" Sonic asked from some distance away. His voice echoed and bounced throughout the cavern around her, calming her slightly.

"I'm okay," she almost sobbed, and then she decided she needed to be brave and strong if she was going to get out of this alive. Suddenly remembering that she had a small flashlight on her keychain, she pulled it out to search around. The small amount of light was enough for her to see the outlines of the ground below, but little more. There was blood smeared and pooled all over the rocks, and she hadn't noticed at first, but the rock that landed on her arm must have busted the bomb as well as her arm. Then she noticed the tiny, jagged metal pieces shining on the ground. It looked as though the device had been shattered into a million pieces from the force of the rock falling on top of it. It was amazing that she had an arm left at all.

Glancing at her arm, she wondered why she couldn't feel any pain. Why wasn't she screaming in agony? Somehow everything had gone numb, and she couldn't feel a thing. She clicked off her flashlight, and rested against the rock that was holding her up. "Amy? Where are you? Turn on your light again," she heard Sonic call, this time closer.

"Sonic, please stay away. Save yourself."

"I'm not leaving without you Amy."

She attempted to use her one good leg to move around, but it, like the rest of her extremities were completely numb, and she ended up just flopping over onto her side. _I'm going to die here, down here in this awful place. And what if the bomb is still active somehow? Sonic will die too. What do I do?_

A groan escaped her lips as she attempted to scoot herself away from that spot, and suddenly the silence was broken when she heard something not more than an arm's length away. All of her strength retreated, and she dropped to the ground and released her breath. "There you are. I thought I felt something warm lying on the ground as I was searching around," Sonic said as he reached out and touched her arm. She instinctively withdrew it in one lightning quick moment, and realized that they were both still alive, and that the bomb hadn't gone off. Sonic reached out again and took her hand. "It's going to be okay Amy, just trust me alright?"

"Okay," she said quietly, enjoying this moment of being close to him and not having to worry about killing him.

"Give me your light," he said. She handed him her key chain, and he clicked on the miniature flashlight, shining it down in her face causing her to close her eyes and turn her face away. "It really is you. I'm glad to see you're okay." Then he shined the light down onto her legs, and he let out a gasp when he realized that she wasn't actually as okay as he had thought. Words failed to escape his mouth, and he quickly bent over to examine her gruesome looking leg. After he got over the initial shock he grabbed her under the arms like a doll, picked her up off the ground, and set her up against the rock she had been leaning against before she fell over. "It's going to be alright Amy," he repeated, almost as though he was trying to convince himself this time.

"I told you to go. There's not much you can do. I will only slow you down."

"Shut up Amy! I'm not leaving without you, and that's final!" Amy was slightly shocked at his anger. He had never yelled at her like that before, but she assumed it was only because he was frustrated. She leaned back against the rock, and lifted her head to the ceiling as Sonic contemplated what to do. "We need to stop the bleeding first." He kneeled down beside her, grabbed the edge of her dress, and began to tear in a circular fashion.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" she cried as she tried to squirm away from him. When he had finished tearing, he had merely shortened the dress, and Amy sighed in relief.

"This is going to hurt, I'm very sorry," he said, and in one quick movement he snapped her leg back into place as best he could with the bone being broken. The pain was excruciating, and all Amy could do was scream and scream until the pain finally dulled. Sweat was beading and dripping down her face as she lay back against the rock, and Sonic tied the fabric that he had ripped from her dress tightly around the open wound to stop the bleeding. Once he was done he looked at her and said, "Good as new," and flashed her a thumbs up.

He reached down and was about to grab her broken arm, but Amy stopped him by saying, "Don't."

"Don't tell me that's broken too," he said sadly. Amy looked down at her lap feeling awful that she had suddenly become completely useless and helpless. Anger began to replace her feelings of self-pity, and she snapped at him.

"I didn't ask you to help me! I'm sorry I'm such a burden to you!"

Sonic looked down at her in surprise, and then his expression relaxed a little as he said, "Amy, I know you didn't ask me for help, and you're not a burden okay? Please just let me help you. Can you hold this for me?" He handed her the flashlight before scooping her up in one swift motion that nearly caught her off guard. She aimed the flashlight straight ahead of where Sonic was going, illuminating his path for him while he ran. She could feel her body cooling, and her eyes were getting heavy as she lay there in Sonic's arms. Her leg had stopped bleeding, but she knew that as every minute passed, her body was slipping deeper and deeper into shock. For fear that she would only worry Sonic, she kept that information to herself, hoping and praying that somehow she would be able to survive this adventure.

"Thank you, Sonic," she whispered softly under her breath as she rested her head against his chest.

**Sonic**

"Thank you Sonic," he heard Amy whisper. He looked down at her for a moment, and then looked back up at where he was going. It felt like it had been forever since the last time he had been able to be this close to Amy. She had been running from him so much lately that his world wasn't making much sense at all. It was so good to see her, but it made him sad to see her in such a mess. If there was one thing he was going to do, he was going to get her out of here and make sure she was safe.

It had really been a long time since he had held her this way. When he had first met her, he felt like he always had to save her. Carrying her away from danger seemed like the norm for him at that time, but now she had become more independent, and rescuing her from danger had become much less common of an occurrence. Being around her would annoy him at times, even if it was kind of fun to pick on her and have her chasing him around. And he would never admit it, but there was something cute and endearing about the way that she was always pursuing him.

After running around for some time, he finally came to a place in the rocks where he could see some light poking through. "Look Amy! We found a way out!" When there was no response he looked down at her, and noticed that the flashlight was lying in her lap and her arms had fallen limply to her sides. Her eyes were closed and her body had gone limp without him noticing. "Amy?" He laid her down on the ground and brushed some of her quills from her face gently and grabbed her hand. Her hand was very cold and clammy, and the sensation sent chills running up and down his spine. "Amy? Come on Amy, stop joking around. Amy? Amy please open your eyes!" He took her arm and felt for a pulse, but he did not find one. "Amy… Amy! Amyyyyyy!" he cried in desperation.

For once in his life, Sonic did not have a clue as to what to do. He did not know how to save Amy this time. It would take him far too long to dig his way out of the cavern. Glancing around he looked for anything that could help him, any idea as to what he could do. There was no way he could just let her die down here, right here, right now.

All of a sudden, he heard a noise from the darkness, and in the distance he could see a faint light glowing that began to stretch along the rocky walls of the cavern as it approached. Shadows reached and stretched all along the surfaces of the cavern, and Sonic called out, "Who's there? Can you help us?" He did not get a response. "Hello? Please help me! My friend is hurt!" His voice echoed and reverberated through the darkness, into the very depths of the cavern. Glancing down at Amy, he put his palm to her cheek to find that it was very cold. His heart began to race all over again, and he decided he had to act now. With Amy in his arms he took off and raced toward the light.


	9. I Found You, Faker!

Sonic Boom

Chapter 8

**Sonic**

As he sped through the darkness, his mind spun and spiraled in a vortex of chaos that had consumed his every thought. If he couldn't save Amy, he didn't know what he would do. If any of his friends died for that matter because he had failed to save them, he did not know what he would do. Surprisingly these thoughts had never occurred to him before. In almost an instant, he was standing in front of the gray cat that he had seen Amy walking around with earlier, still wearing her purple outfit. There was a bright flame in the palm of her hand, lighting up the dark corridor. "Whoa! Where did you come from? I thought I heard someone yelling, was that you? What happened?" she asked looking down at Amy lying in his arms.

"She needs help or she's going to die, and I can't let that happen. Is there any way that you can help?"

"Possibly. But I need you to set her down and stand back."

Sonic laid the pink hedgehog gently on the ground and stepped back to give her some room, and Clair placed her hand on Amy's chest as she closed her eyes and began to hum to herself. It was a soft, monotonous tone that did not change pitch, and it almost sounded as though there was a bee buzzing around in the cavern with them. He looked at her skeptically, not believing that what she was doing was going to save her in any way when suddenly the space beneath her hand began to glow orange, and then green. The colors swirled through the air beneath her palm as though she were smearing them around. Then she spoke. It was not a language that Sonic was familiar with, or could even guess, but as she spoke the lights began to spread across Amy's body. The lights slowly engulfed her entire body, reaching her arms, her legs, her fingers, and toes until eventually even her head had been consumed by it.

Sonic could not believe what he was witnessing. Somehow this girl was actually performing magic. He could see the bright green light glowing and illuminating the environment around them, and it began to take a form, rising up off of Amy in small wisps. Then took on the appearance of a blue flame. The blue fire consumed her entire body until he could not see any part of Amy, and then suddenly he became concerned that this might not actually work. The girl stopped chanting, and then the blue fire burned a purple color before extinguishing in an instant, leaving little traces of color floating along Amy's body. Sonic moved closer and crouched down beside Amy. "Is she going to be okay?" he asked.

The girl said nothing, but instead stared straight ahead at absolutely nothing. Her lost stare worried him slightly. Suddenly Amy's eyes fluttered open and fell on him almost instantly. "Sonic," she said softly before turning her gaze to the cat that seemed to be lost in her own mind. The cat girl slowly fell over and collapsed on the ground, leaving Sonic and Amy in complete darkness.

Scrambling around, Sonic reached for the tiny flashlight on Amy's key ring, and turned it on. "Sonic? What happened?" Amy asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. A miracle I think."

Amy sat up in the darkness, and watched as Sonic swung the flashlight around as though he was looking for something. Finally the light landed on Clair, who was lying unconscious on the ground. "Clair? Clair what happened?!" Amy cried as she stood up and ran to Clair.

"Wow she really was able to heal you!" Sonic exclaimed as he joined her at Clair's side. "Clair did it."

"We need to get out of here," Amy said, turning back to Sonic. "Can you carry Clair? I can walk on my own."

Sonic instantly took action and scooped the witch girl into his arms before he and Amy, took off in the direction of the possible exit Sonic had found earlier. When they arrived, Amy took out her piko piko hammer and smashed away at the brittle rocks until they finally gave way, revealing a small hole for them to escape through.

Amy slipped through the hole, then turned to help Sonic get himself as well as Clair out of the cavern. When he was finally out of the hole, he looked up into the sky, noticing that they were still inside the canyon that he had fallen into earlier. Sonic tossed Clair over his shoulder, and turned to Amy and told her, "Take my hand."

She did as he instructed, and in an instant, she found herself flying up the side of the canyon at an incredible speed. Before she knew it, they had burst out of the canyon into wide-open space. "Tails? Knuckles?" Sonic called wondering where they had gone, considering the last time he had seen them they were still fighting off Ivy's monsters, including an Amy-look-alike. But it appeared as though no one had been there at all, which only served to greatly confuse him.

"I think we need to go to the Mystic Ruins. That's where Ivy was planning to carry out her plan," Amy suggested. "And Clair has family there. Maybe we can bring her there so she will be safe."

"Great idea. Let's get going. Hold on tight, Amy."

**Amy**

When they arrived in the Mystic Ruins, they could see smoke coming from one of the hilltops overlooking the forest. Sonic came to a stop and released Amy's hand before asking, "What should we do with Clair?"

"She told me that her family lives here somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure where exactly."

"Well we don't really have time to go looking around. But I don't really want to take her into battle with us while she's in this condition."

"You're right," Amy agreed as Sonic laid Clair down in a patch of grass, and he turned to face Amy.

"I think it would be best if you stayed here with her, while I go finish off Ivy."

"No! That's not fair! I'm going to help you no matter what!"

"I don't see any other options. This way the both of you will stay safe."

"Stop acting like I can't take care of myself. I'm not the child I used to be. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Stop treating me like a child…" Amy could feel the tears threatening to well up in her eyes, but she knew if she let them show, she would lose her case.

"Amy, please. I care a lot about you, and I don't want to see you get hurt again. Nearly losing you once today was bad enough. Now please, just stay here." And with that Sonic took off in the direction of the smoke that was billowing into the sky.

"Sonic get back here!" she shouted as she started to take off after him, but stopped almost immediately. "He makes me so mad sometimes!" she yelled to herself as she turned back to Clair only to find that she was gone. "Clair? Clair, where did you go?"

Clair was nowhere to be found, causing Amy a great deal of concern, but she did not know where to start looking, and she knew she had to help Sonic. After searching around for a few minutes, she decided that she needed to go up to the top of that hill and help Sonic. She would have to look for Clair later. So, like Sonic, she turned and dashed off into the trees.

As she approached, she could see a large machine perched atop the hill, with Ivy standing behind the controls inside. Glancing around, she wondered how she was going to go about taking it down. Where was Sonic? Hurrying up the hill, she headed toward the first entrance that she could find, and knocked the door down with a few swings of her hammer. She was surprised to find that she was met with no resistance. Amy passed quickly through the hallway and entered the door at the end, which lead to a short flight of stairs that she climbed without hesitation. The stairs led to another corridor lined with doors on each side, so Amy decided to enter the first door she could find that was unlocked.

Something didn't seem quite right, and she wondered why she had been able to come this far without any sort of resistance. When she entered the room, she could see three glass chamber pods in the back of the room, illuminated by a faint eerie green light shining up from the floor and ceiling. Then she noticed what was inside the pods and almost darted across the room on sheer instinct. She could see Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails, all trapped within the pods, similar to the one Ivy had trapped her in at her other lair. Before she was able to cross the room, she could see all three of them waving their arms at her and making gestures that indicated that they did not want her to get any closer. Out of stubbornness, she almost continued to walk closer, but when she saw the panicked expressions on their faces she stopped.

She could see Sonic raise his arm, and around his wrist was a device similar to the one that she had been burdened with, one that explode when she got within a certain distance of him. Knuckles and Tails both also raised their arms, and she could see that they also had bombs strapped to their arms, and based upon her previous knowledge, decided that these devices worked in a similar way to the one she had on earlier. Once again Ivy was trying to be cruel, and have them kill each other. Quickly she spun around to leave the room and put as much distance between herself and them as possible when she realized that Ivy was standing directly behind her. Jumping backward, she felt her heart attempt to jump out of her chest via her throat.

"Nice to see you again, Amy. What brings you here?" the evil woman asked before swatting at Amy, knocking her backward onto her backside. "Thought you'd just stroll in here and save they day, huh? Well you thought wrong." Ivy stepped closer, a cruel, horrifying, malicious gleam in her eyes that sent chills throughout Amy's body. She could hear Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all banging away at the thick, unbreakable glass trapping them, and the sound of their faint, muffled voices yelling and shouting at her. Just as Ivy was about to kick Amy, she rolled out of the way, and hopped to her feet, only to have Ivy grab her wrist and swing her across the room, sending her flying into a table covered in various equipment.

Amy picked up one of the bone saws lying on the ground next to her, and held it out in front of her as Ivy lurked toward her. "Get back!" Amy called.

Ivy moved as fast as lightning when she swooped around Amy from the other side and kicked at her, knocking the saw from her hand and sending it across the room where it landed with a loud clatter. Ivy shoved Amy once again, which sent her falling to the ground as she shouted, "Go save your friends!" The mad woman seemed to have completely lost her mind, and the room was filled with an uncomfortable, insane tension that was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Once again, the pink hedgehog rolled out of the way of her next blow, but this time she whipped out her hammer and swung, landing a satisfying blow on Ivy that sent her staggering back a few steps.

Just as Amy was about to leap at Ivy, and attack again, she felt two arms wrap around her waist and drag her backward slightly before flipping her backward through the air. Looking up from the floor, she could see a mirror image of herself standing above her, leering down at her. "This is my latest creation! She's your clone! Isn't she beautiful?" Suddenly the outlook of this situation looked much more grim and bleak than it had a mere ten seconds ago. Now she not only had to deal with Ivy, who was slick and hard to attack, but she also had to essentially fight herself. She needed more room, and she desperately needed to put some space between her and her friends.

"Come get me!" Amy cried as she turned and sprinted out the door, jumping over all of the stairs at the end of the hall, nearly losing her footing and almost falling flat on her face in the process. Regaining her balance, she hurried down the hall and out the door that she had entered originally. Once she was outside, she pulled out her hammer once again, and spun around on her heel in one quick motion, bringing her hammer around in an arc as she smashed it into clone Amy, who had been following closely behind her. The clone Amy retrieved her own hammer, and lunged, bringing her own hammer down, and slammed it into the ground that Amy had just been standing on just moments ago.

The two Amy's exchanged blows, danced and dodged around each other, and blocked attacks, trapped in a world in which they were the only two that existed. Amy's intense focus on her opponent made her movements and attacks very precise, but left her vulnerable to attack from outside sources. But if it was the last thing she did, she was going to defeat Ivy and her minions, and save Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails. "Hiiiyaaaaa!" she cried as she came down on top of clone Amy with her hammer, smashing her upside the head, and causing her to lose her balance. Amy swung once again, this time knocking her over. "Please just stop this," Amy said to her. "I know we share genetic information, so there has to be some part of you that can listen to reason. Ivy has lied to you. Everything she told you isn't true. She's only using you."

The other Amy looked up at her for a moment, pondering what she had said when suddenly a dark cloud passed over her face, and she said, "No, you're the liar! Ivy takes good care of me and is helping me remember my past!"

"You don't have a past! You're my clo-

The other Amy cut her off as she leaped up from the ground, and swung her hammer so hard, she knocked Amy off of her feet, and sent her sailing through one of the glass windows in Ivy's base. As she lay there on the floor, covered in bloody cuts, and scrapes as well as broken glass, she realized that she had no idea where Ivy was, or what she was doing. Standing up, she took off for the staircase, and followed it all the way to the top and exited through the door at the very end. She found herself standing on the top of Ivy's lair, and could see Ivy readying the machine for dispersal of the gas she was bragging to her about earlier. If she didn't hurry, the whole world would be in trouble. Charging at Ivy, she leaped through the air with her hammer drawn, and brought it down on top of the control panel that Ivy was working on.

Catching the mad doctor by surprise, Ivy cried out, "You stupid brat! You're supposed to be fighting your clone!"

Amy danced out of Ivy's reach as she tried to grab her, and took another swing at the control panel, resulting in a loud crunching noise as well as the flying of sparks. "NOOOOO!" Ivy cried as she tried to stop her. The woman desperately tried to press some of the buttons on the control panel, in hopes that they would still work, only to find that they didn't. When the realization finally hit her, she turned to Amy, pure hatred and anger emanating from her. "You're going to die. You're going to die right here, right now." Ivy reached into her coat pocket and removed an odd looking and utterly terrifying knife. Amy swung her hammer at her in self-defense, but the woman dodged her attack and lunged at her, knocking both of them off of the lair.

They both landed on the ground with a loud thump, and Amy turned to push Ivy off of her, only to find herself struggling to muster up enough strength push the crazy woman away from her. Amy's arms were the only things keeping Ivy from stabbing her with her knife, and she felt her arms quickly losing their strength. After a few moments of holding her away from her, her arms slipped, and Ivy's knife was successful in impaling Amy's shoulder, sending jolts of pain throughout her.

A loud, piercing, continuous scream escaped from her as the pain coursed throughout her shoulder. Blood began to spill out of the wound, onto the ground beneath her, and Ivy sat over her, triumphantly smiling down at her. The knife had gone all the way through and had even gone into the ground, pinning Amy there like a helpless child. Her vision began to swim and blur with the pain until she couldn't think straight anymore.


	10. A Hero's Heart

Sonic Boom

Chapter 9

**Amy**

Her thoughts stilled, and her mind went blank as the pain consumed Amy's entire being. The pain was unbearable, but she was pinned to the ground, and Ivy had her other arm so she could not reach around to pull out the dagger in her shoulder. Blood pooled underneath her upper back, spreading across the ground as more escaped her wound. As the pain began to slowly dull, her thoughts returned to her, hitting her hard as though someone had thrown them at her. Thoughts swam rapidly through her head, making complete chaos that seemed completely uncontrollable and maddening. It was then, that Amy decided that her life was over, that she had failed her friends, and that Ivy had defeated her. All her strength was gone, and she was slowly bleeding out, when suddenly she thought of Sonic.

She remembered everything he had done for her throughout her life, how he had always come to her rescue, and he never gave up no matter what obstacles he faced. His drive to save others in need outweighed any obstacle that he could ever come up against, and it was then that Amy decided she wouldn't give up either. She was going to see this through until the moment her heart stopped beating, and if it came to that, then so be it, as long as her friends were safe.

As she pulled her mind together and gathered her thoughts, she felt a renewed strength coursing through her veins, filling her and keeping her alive. With one quick movement, she brought her leg in and thrust it out at Ivy as hard as she possibly could, which knocked her backward in surprise. Then Amy reached around with her good arm, and quickly ripped the dagger from her shoulder. The pain was excruciating, but she had to do it if she was going to get up. When the knife cleared her skin, dripping blood all over her, she rolled to the side and leaped up to her feet, feeling adrenaline coursing throughout her body and keeping her moving.

Taking the dagger in her good, usable hand, she threw herself at Ivy, barely grazing her as she flew by. Amy danced around her, and then went to take out her hammer and realized that using it would be very difficult without both of her arms. She decided it was worth a shot, and held it in her hand with her good arm, and flew at Ivy who was prepared this time. Ivy grabbed her hammer in mid-air, and swung it around, and let it fly, sending Amy sailing through the air with it. She landed on the ground and slid quite a ways through the dirt and rocks before finally coming to a stop. Her wounded shoulder was still losing a considerable amount of blood, and she began to wonder how long she could keep this up.

Her body was beginning to feel the effects of blood loss, and if she didn't do something to stop it, she would have no chance of defeating Ivy. Clone Amy picked that moment to join Ivy, and she ran toward Amy who was still lying on the ground in a pathetic heap, contemplating her options. It was then, that Amy's savior appeared out of nowhere to hopefully save Amy's life once again. Clair blasted clone Amy with her fire, sending the girl running in the opposite direction as the tips of her red dress burned. "Not you again!" Ivy shouted in frustration when she realized what was happening.

"Hang in there, Amy," Clair said to her just before she charged at Ivy and blasted her with a similar attack. The flames were not enough to kill her, or burn her horribly, but the heat and pain that it caused was enough to send her running in the opposite direction as well. Then Clair turned back to Amy, and knelt beside her, looking down at her bleeding shoulder. "We need to fix that." She reached down, and touched Amy's shoulder.

"What are you doing? Stop, don't do that. I don't want you to overexert yourself like you did when you saved me back in that canyon. I'll be fine."

"No, you won't. You're going to bleed to death if we don't take care of it. I'll be fine, just let me help you." And with that, Amy gave up her resistance, and Clair reached down to touch her wound, and a bright glowing light emanated from her palm before engulfed Amy's entire shoulder. In only a few moments, the warm magic had healed her shoulder, and Amy was able to use her arm once again.

"Thank you very much Clair. You've done so much for me in these last few days. I can't even begin to repay you. You've been very kind to me considering how little we know each other."

"Don't sweat it, it's what I do. I'm glad I could help," the gray cat said with a sweet smile that was more genuine than any smile Amy had ever seen before. This girl was like an angel sent from heaven, and Amy had no idea why she was so lucky to have had the privilege to meet her.

"I hate to bring it up, but I have just one more favor to ask of you. My friends are all trapped in that base, and they all have bombs on their wrists similar to the one I had earlier. I think that somehow they are set to detonate if I get within a certain distance of them. Could you go and rescue them and find a way to remove the bombs? I'll go and finish off Ivy and the Amy clone while you do that."

"Sure, I can do that." Clair went to stand up, and nearly lost her balance and tumbled over. Amy reached out to steady her.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Just a little side effect of using my magic is all. Don't worry about it." Then Clair took off toward the base, and Amy remembered that she hadn't even told Clair where to go to find them. She wondered if she would be able to find them on her own.

**Sonic**

Time continued to slip away as he tried and tried again to free himself from his container to no avail. Next to him he could see Tails and Knuckles through the thick glass, attempting to do the same. He would spin dash into the wall, throw around all of his weight using what little speed he could get in such small quarters, and he even resorted to pounding his fists against the glass with the desperate hope that somehow the glass would give way. It seemed as though he had been trapped in there for an eternity with no hope of ever escaping. And then there was the issue of the bomb that was attached to his arm, much like the one that had plagued Amy for some time.

He was about to give the spin dash another go when suddenly he saw a shadow appear on the wall. His gaze was immediately drawn to the figure that had entered the room, and a nervous anticipation filled him.

"Clair!" he called when he realized who had entered. His voice echoed around in his chamber, but he figured that it sounded muffled to anyone who was outside of his container. She seemed to immediately notice the control panel in the corner of the room, and headed there first. There was a large black button that was visible from where Sonic was standing, and she must have read a label on it because she knew right away what button to press to release them. The glass containers slid down into a metallic shaft in the floor with a loud resonating clanking sound.

"Are you guys alright?" Clair asked as she approached them.

"We're fine. We just need to get these things off before laying a smack down on Ivy," Sonic said waving his bomb arm in the air.

"Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to take them off, but I do have some family here in the Mystic Ruins that specialize in all things mechanical. I imagine they could help."

"Sweet! Take us to them!"

After Clair told Sonic where to go, he scooped her up in his arms and took off in that direction with Tails and Knuckles following closely behind. When they arrived at their destination, the first thing he noticed was a small cottage hiding amidst a large pile of boulders and rocks. It was a quaint little structure that screamed of a particular kind of lifestyle that would never suit Sonic. Clair led them up the stone steps the front door, and opened the door without knocking before leading the three friends through the interior of the cottage. "Clair? What are you doing here?" a young raccoon girl asked. She was wearing a navy blue tube top that was covered in grease as well as an equally dirty pair of black cargo pants.

"I don't have a lot of time Rena. My friends here are trying to save our world as we know it, but they need some help. Do you think you and Tom could help them?"

"Well we'll definitely try our hardest to help. What do y'all need?"

"These devices that are attached to our arms are bombs, and if we get within a certain distance of the designated target, they'll go off," Tails offered.

"Designated target? What are you talking about?"

"Our friend, Amy. If we get within a certain distance of her, we'll set them off and kill her as well as ourselves."

"We can give it a shot. Come back here with me." Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles followed Rena through the kitchen and out the back door into a yard that was littered with various pieces of equipment. She led them to a shed on the far corner of their yard. When she opened the door, they noticed all sorts of tools and gadgets lining the shelves and counters in the room. Tails was looking around like a kid in a candy store, ogling and admiring all of the cool toys they had. "Hey, Tom, Catty, could you guys take a break and help me out here."

Suddenly the filthy face of an orange cat popped out from underneath some kind of vehicle. "Sure thing, darling," he said as he slid out from underneath it. Then he was joined by a blond cat who was presumably Catty. "What can we do to help?"

"They need us to take these off," Rena said as she took Knuckles' arm and held it up so they could see the bomb.

"Sure thing. Catty, grab my toolbox, please." The blond cat reached down and brought over a large, red toolbox and set it down next to Tom. He opened it up and Rena grabbed a stool and brought it over so she could sit next to him. Tom pulled out a wrench and some other tool that Sonic had never seen before and soon Rena and Catty had grabbed similar tools and were each working on one of the three friends.

All of them were working diligently, completely focused on the task at hand. They were all very meticulous and precise in their movements, almost as if they saw this kind of thing on a daily basis. "So you guys are related to Clair?" Tails asked in an attempt to make conversation while they waited.

"Tom and I are Clair's brother and sister, but Rena is Tom's wife," Catty replied softly.

"We have more family, but they choose to live their lives differently from us," Tom said.

"What do you mean?" Knuckles asked. Sonic glanced at Knuckles, realizing that he had forgotten that he was with them. "What?!" he asked defensively at Sonic's expression.

"Nothing," Sonic chuckled.

"We come from royalty, but we choose to live out our lives in this humble little cottage doing what we want to do, not what we're expected to do," Catty answered.

"Really? That's pretty cool. I respect that," Sonic said.

"Catty, would you mind handing me the lubricant?" Tom asked.

Sonic glanced up and noticed that the bottle that he was talking about was on the other side of the room by the window. There was movement outside the window, and then a small vine slithered in and wrapped itself around the bottle of lubricant before sliding back out the window with the bottle. A few moments later, the vine returned through the front door of the shed and placed the bottle right side up on the floor next to Tom's stool. "How did you do that?" Sonic asked in disbelief.

"Catty's green eyes found Sonic's before she answered, "It's magic." She smiled before returning her gaze to the device on Tails' arm.

"So you have powers too?" Tails asked.

"Yeah, kind of," she returned.

"All three of us have our own powers. We come from a long line of powerful, royal witches," Tom said.

"That's intense," Sonic said. Tom took the lubricant, and squirted some of it in the space he made between the bomb and Sonic's arm. He then began to tug on the bomb and it began to slide back and forth. Then the device slid completely off of Sonic's arm. Then Rena and Catty repeated this procedure, and soon enough all three of the friends were bomb free once again. "That's it?" Sonic asked not believing how quick they were able to get them off.

"That's it," Tom said with a smile.

"Thank you guys so much!" Tails said.

"It's the least we could do for Clair's friends," Rena said. "Follow me. I'll take you guys back to Clair."

**Amy**

Amy had made her way back to the base, knowing that she had to end all of this. It didn't take her long to find that Ivy and clone Amy were waiting for her on the roof again, only this time they were more heavily armed and dangerous. Ivy had some kind of large chainsaw looking weapon, and clone Amy had her piko piko hammer. Amy decided this would be a good opportunity to pull out her own hammer, and ready herself for the fight that was about to ensue. "Are you sure you want to face us, Amy? You're outnumbered and outmatched. You may as well try to escape while you can," Ivy called menacingly to her from across the rooftop.

"I'm not running away. I'm going to end all of this right here, right now. I will stop you, Ivy, no matter what!"

With that, Amy pulled out an abnormally large piko piko hammer, and launched into a sprint toward Ivy and Clone Amy, bringing back her hammer and leaping through the air in one graceful movement. Ivy started her chainsaw and held it out in front of herself in an attempt to guard against Amy's attack. With all of the force she could manage, Amy swung her large hammer into the side of the chainsaw. The quickly moving blades cut up the hammer and jarred her movement, but they also began to break away with the force behind the blow. Clone Amy leaped into action, and threw herself at Amy who was able to easily dodge her and retaliate with an even stronger swing.

Clone Amy was sent flying backward and rolled clumsily across the rooftop until she finally came to a complete stop. Amy turned back to Ivy once again, and swung again, this time missing her completely. The chainsaw spun viciously as it grazed the side of Amy's shoulder drawing blood to the surface of her skin. She cried out in pain as she leaped backward landing on her feet. After she composed herself, she lunged at Ivy once again in an attempt to pound her into the ground beneath their feet. Instead, Ivy dodged and Amy's hammer smashed through the rooftop, causing it all to collapse in on itself. Amy, her clone, and Ivy all fell through the ceiling into the control room below.

"I've had it with you, you meddling brat!" Ivy yelled ferociously as she brought the chainsaw in one sweeping arc that very nearly sliced Amy in half. Amy brought her hammer out in front of her to guard against Ivy's next attack, and bounced back from the force behind it. Holding her hammer in front of her like a shield, she managed to hold off all of Ivy's attacks until Clone Amy came at her from behind.

The impact sent Amy flying against the wall, nearly causing her to lose consciousness, but there was no time for that now. "It doesn't matter what you do now Amy Rose because I've already activated my backup generators that will carry out my plans as originally intended. You've already lost. So give up already!"

"You don't know the first thing about me if you think I'm going to give up that easily," Amy snarled as she forced herself to her feet once again. "I will fight you until I breathe my last breath!"

"See it your way! I'll be more than happy to kill you!" Just as Ivy was about to attack Amy, clone Amy accidentally leaped in Ivy's way. The sight was gruesome, and Amy could hardly keep her eyes open as the blades of the chainsaw cut their way through her clone. "GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAYYYY!" Ivy roared as she tossed her torn up Amy clone aside. Blood splattered everywhere leaving little spots of red all over any visible surface. Ivy charged at Amy in her obsessive, all consuming rage, swinging her spinning chainsaw around like a mad woman. Amy gripped the handle of her hammer firmly before spinning around using the momentum of her moving hammer to keep her going. She spun like a top into Ivy, sending the woman sailing through the air to the other side of the room. The mad doctor collapsed on the control panel, and Amy's perpetual spinning motion struck her once again, sending her through the window with a loud crash.

Ivy grabbed onto the windowsill to keep herself from falling several stories to the ground below where her chainsaw had fallen. The woman scrambled to try to pull herself back up when suddenly Amy realized that this was her moment. She could finally end all of this by forcing Ivy to fall to her death. But there was a part of her that realized that she could not do that, she could not intentionally end someone's life, no matter what they had done. "Hang on, Ivy!" Amy called as she dropped her hammer and hurried to the window to help her back up, knowing that doing so would probably result in her own demise.

"Amy! Please help me! I'm slipping!" Ivy called with desperation leaking out of her voice.

Amy hopped up onto the control panel and grabbed Ivy's hand and began to pull. Ivy tried to get a footing on the side of the building and climb back into the window as Amy gave all her strength to trying to pull her back inside. Ivy began to gain some stability from bracing her feet against a ledge below the window when she suddenly jerked on Amy's arm in order to drag her out the window.


	11. Final Goodbyes

Sonic Boom

Chapter 10

**Sonic**

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles returned to the living room inside the cabin where they had left Clair, only to find that she wasn't there. "Where did Clair go?" Sonic asked turning back to Rena.

"I'm not sure. Clair! Clair, where are you?" she called as she began searching around the cabin. "I don't know where she went off to. Something must have come up, and she left already. But I wouldn't worry. She'll come back."

"Alright. Well thanks for all of your help. We were in quite a bind," Sonic said. Then he blasted out of the house shortly followed by Knuckles and Tails.

**Amy**

Instinctively, Amy released Ivy's hand and went to grab the nearest thing she could to keep herself from going out the window. Somehow she managed to stop herself, but Ivy lost her footing and slipped and fell, screaming as she fell to the ground below.

Amy was hanging partially out the window at this point, but braced herself and slid back into the control room. She released a sigh of relief, narrowly escaping death once again, and hurried over to her clone who was bleeding to death on the floor.

"Hang on! I just need to get you help and-

"No. Please just leave me. There was only ever meant to be one of you. I thought Ivy cared about me, but it turns out I was wrong. She only ever cared about you," her voice was thick as though she were going to start crying. "She was obsessed with you. That's why she created me, so she could own you and control you in her own way."

"Don't talk that way! We could be great friends, Amy! Please just hold on and-

"NO! Please just let me go. At least now I can die knowing that in some small way, I was able to help you defeat her and save the world. Don't let me down, Amy." With that, she closed her eyes and her body went completely still. Tears filled Amy's eyes, not only because she had just witnessed someone's death, but also because in a way, she was watching herself die.

Amy stood up, and resisted the urge to vomit at the sight of her own mangled body, and turned back to the control panel. Somehow she had to stop the backup generators.

Suddenly, as if on cue, she heard the sound of engines in the distance. Glancing out the broken window, she could see large airships heading in the direction of Ivy's base. There was something oddly familiar about the airships. As they got closer, she quickly realized that they belonged to Eggman, and it wasn't long after that realization that she heard his voice booming from the loud speakers of the ships. "Ivy, I have come to get my revenge. If anyone is going to conquer this world, it is going to be me."

Shortly after that, Amy could see bombshells dropping from his ships, destroying the land around the base. Amy knew she needed to get out, and fast. Turning around, she hurried out into the hallway, and then down the flights of stairs hoping that she would be fast enough. The loud booms of explosions filled the air around her, and she knew they were about to strike the base. Suddenly, her feet were lifted up off the ground, and she found herself in Sonic's arms. He dashed down the stairs and brought her outside before turning to run away from the base. It was then that Amy glanced behind them and noticed Ivy's body lying in an awkward position on top of her chainsaw. Her neck was twisted at a strange angle that told Amy that she had broken her neck and almost certainly died upon impact with the ground.

When Sonic reached a safe distance away from the exploding base, he turned around and set her down on her feet once again. She stood there in front of him for a moment, enjoying this brief time she had to be completely alone with him. Glancing up into his face, she noticed that he seemed to be enjoying the moment just as much as she was, as indicated by the slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Thank you for saving me again, Sonic."

He remained silent, gave her a thumbs up, and then a strange confused expression crossed his face as his eyes fixated on her lips. Amy felt her palms become sweaty, as she looked up into his face, feeling herself very gradually leaning into him. "Hey, Sonic!" Tails called from the trees with Knuckles following behind him. Amy stiffened and pulled away, feeling disappointment flood throughout her. "Glad to see you two are safe. I guess Eggman is finishing up our job for us, huh?" Then suddenly the four friends turned back to watch Ivy's base disappear in a fiery explosion as Eggman unleashed countless bombshells on it.

When Eggman finished destroying the base, the fleet of airships passed overhead, and Sonic called up to him not sure if he would hear him or not. "Thanks Eggman! You've saved us a lot of trouble!"

"I didn't do it for you, blue pincushion!" Eggman called as he flew by in his Egg Mobile.

"Well either way it's greatly appreciated!" Sonic called as Eggman passed by.

"Well it's time I take my leave. It's been fun running around on this wild goose chase with you guys, but I really need to get back to the Master Emerald," Knuckles said with a quick wave. In the next instant, he had leaped up and grabbed onto the bottom antenna structure protruding from the bottom of the Egg Mobile and drifted off into the distance as Eggman flew away.

"He always has to make a dramatic exit doesn't he?" Sonic said.

"He's never been one for a simple goodbye," Tails said.

It seemed to Amy as though the nightmare she had been living in for the last few days was finally coming to an end. The only thing missing was her other savior. "Hey, where's Clair?" she asked.

"We're not really sure. The last time we saw her was at her family's house. We can take you there if you want," Sonic offered.

"Please do."

**Sonic**

When they arrived at the cabin, Rena gladly invited them back in, and informed them that she hadn't seen Clair since they had left earlier. "I wonder where she would have gone off to. I really wanted to see her one last time before we all returned home," Amy said sadly.

"You guys are more than welcome to hang out here for a while. I'm sure she'll return soon enough," Tom said as he collapsed on a couch next to his wife.

"Thank you. We really appreciate it," Amy said.

"I'm going to step outside for a few," Sonic said as he headed for the front door.

"I'll come with you!" Amy called as she hopped up from her seat. Suddenly his heart sped up and he felt a discomfort that always seemed to follow any attempt Amy made at being romantic with him.

"Amy that's not necessary. I won't be long. Just stay here. I imagine you're tired," he said in a desperate attempt to make her stay behind.

"Don't be silly, I want to come with you!" She followed him outside and joined him as he began to walk into the woods surrounding the cabin. They walked for some time in an uncomfortable silence that made him begin to regret coming out here at all. He tried to ignore it until suddenly Amy broke the silence.

"I'm glad this whole mess is over. Aren't you?"

"Mm-hm." The walked in silence for a few more steps before she asked what she had come out here in the first place to ask.

"So, I wanted to ask you… what was that earlier?"

Sonic kept his expression calm and cool, but he was incredibly confused and had no idea what she was talking about. "What are you talking about?"

Amy was holding her hands behind her back as she walked, and suddenly she turned her head and glanced over at him. There was a curious expression on her face and all Sonic could do was stare straight ahead and pretend that this situation wasn't completely uncomfortable. His palms began to sweat for some reason unknown to him, so he clenched his hands into fists. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, and saw a hint of anger in her expression. "What do you mean, 'What are you talking about'? You were going to- We were going to- How can you pretend nothing happened?" Amy dropped her face to the ground and her bangs fell over her eyes so Sonic could not see them.

"I'm really not sure what you're talking about, Amy. I'm sorry," Sonic said. He began running the day through his head, trying to remember what she might be talking about. Then he remembered when they had been standing on that hill as Eggman bombed Ivy's base. A strange feeling had overcome him, one that he had never felt before and couldn't seem to put a finger on. Maybe that was what she was talking about, but how would she know what he was feeling? "Amy-

"No, never mind. I'm sorry I brought it up," she cut him off, sounding like she was going to cry. Suddenly she stopped walking, turned around, and slowly began to walk in the other direction. "I'm heading back to the cabin."

**Amy**

How could he not know what she was talking about? He was going to kiss her wasn't he? Tears began to well up in her eyes, and slowly began to spill down in warm streams down her cheeks. She sniffled as her nose began to run, and a large painful lump formed in her throat threatening to make her lose all control. She had faced so much in the last few days, and it was only now beginning to hit her all at once. "Amy wait! Let me at least walk you back. Amy? Are you crying?" he asked as he approached.

"No, I'm fine," she replied as she turned her face away and wiped the fluids from her face with her arm.

"Amy-

"Clair?" Amy called as she lifted her face and noticed someone lying near the brush a little ways away. Out of nowhere she darted off in the direction that she had been looking and dropped to her knees beside Clair. The cat girl was lying on the ground and her purple witch hat had fallen off and was stuck in a nearby bush. "Clair are you okay? Clair!" Amy stroked Clair's face gently in hopes that she would open her eyes and say something to her. But there was something very odd and disconcerting about the still girl lying before her. Her body was completely still, and her limbs appeared to be quite stiff.

"Clair don't do this to me! Clair!" Amy cried looking down at the cat girl. Sonic dropped down to the ground beside Amy and looked down at Clair's motionless form. Her face was completely still and her chest did not rise and lower with her breath. He reached down and felt the carotid artery in her neck for a pulse, hoping with a great desperation that he would feel its steady beat. His own heart nearly stopped when he realized that there was no pulse.

"Amy, I'm so sorry," he said as he put an arm around her shoulder.

"How did this happen? Why did this happen?" Suddenly all control was lost, and all Amy could do was collapse in on herself and sob loudly as tears fell down her face in waterfalls. She barely knew Clair, but the girl had done so much for Amy despite that fact. She had saved her life several times in the last few days without the slightest hope that she would be rewarded in any way. Sonic wrapped his arms around Amy and pulled her into his chest as she cried knowing that for once, there was nothing he could do.

The End

**A/N: This is technically the true ending of the story. I had intended from the beginning to end it with something sad, dramatic, and unsettling, I just wasn't sure how I was going to do it yet. It is a drama after all. However, I do intend to write an epilogue that will end things on a slightly better note. So if you were unhappy with this ending, keep your eyes out for the epilogue. Like always, please add this to your favorites list if you liked it, and leave me a review, so I know what you thought of it. Constructive criticism is always welcomed as well. Thank you all for continuing to follow this story. I know I haven't been very fast about updating it, but I appreciate your patience. Thanks to all my readers! Your support is what keeps me going!**


	12. Epilogue

Sonic Boom

Epilogue

**A/N: So for all of you that found the other ending too unsettling, here's a little addition that will give you a little more closure. Let me know what you think! **

**Amy**

A miniscule amount of sunlight shone through the dark gray overcast sky on this particular afternoon. It was one of those days that was best described as melancholy. Amy tried to focus on the clicking of her black heels to distract herself from sad thoughts as she walked across the cobblestone walkway in front of the funeral home. Sonic and Tails were walking alongside her, keeping a constant eye on her as though they expected her to lose it and break down at any moment. They both dressed up and sat through Clair's funeral service, all just to support Amy. She could not have had better friends, but at this very moment, all she could think about was how much sadness and pain she had faced in the last week, and how the results of that terrible week would last forever in her mind.

"What do you want to do now, Amy?" Sonic asked softly as though she were a fragile child.

"I want to go home," she replied quietly. She mindlessly reached down and began to play with the black fabric of her dress.

"Okay, then we'll take you home," Sonic said wrapping his arm around her shoulder as he began to guide her away from the funeral home. Tails trailed along closely behind them.

It seemed to Amy, as though her world would never be the same.

Several months had passed since the day of Clair's funeral, and life appeared to have resumed its usual routine. Dr. Eggman had taken his usual brief hiatus between defeats before implementing his newest scheme.

It was this very day that the evil doctor had decided to enact his latest plot in order to conquer the world. "Look! There it is!" Amy shouted as she reached around Tails who was in the seat in front of her, pointing to a large machine hidden amongst the trees in the distance. Tails nodded and made a sound of acknowledgment as he kept his eyes ahead of him in order to watch where he was flying the Tornado.

"I see it!" Sonic called to Amy from atop the wings of the biplane. Tails began to bring the plane down to a lower altitude when they noticed all of the trees surrounding Eggman's current base begin to shake violently. Lately they had been experiencing a constant wave of increasingly violent earthquakes that were far from being normal. It was then that Tails began to discover what was really happening.

Eggman's latest scheme involved the use of a new machine that had the ability to tap into the planet's underground magma core so that it could be drained, leaving the structural integrity of the planet in jeopardy. As the magma began to disappear from the center of the planet, the remaining structure began to compensate by collapsing in on itself to fill the empty spaces, resulting in earthquakes and other natural disasters.

"I'm going to try to bring us down to a lower altitude so we have a better view. You ready Amy?" Tails said.

"Ready!" she replied.

The Tornado began to drop lower and lower until finally they were barely above the trees of the forest. Amy held her hands above the buttons sitting on the control pad in front of her, readying herself for Tails' signal. A few seconds later Tails cried, "Go!"

Amy began pressing the different buttons at a constant interval, releasing bombshells from the cargo hold that Tails had added to the underside of his plane. Bombs dropped out one at a time, resulting in large explosions below. Eggman's base was slowly turning to rubble, and all seemed to be going just as planned until suddenly he launched a counter attack. Missiles flew up from his base toward the Tornado in waves causing Tails to begin swinging the plane back and forth in order to dodge them. Amy continued to press the buttons, but it was becoming clear that they were going to have a harder time hitting the base now that Tails was going to have to dodge around so much.

Sonic leaped from his position atop the Tornado, and began a series of homing attacks, taking out the missiles one at a time. This gave Tails and Amy a chance to get closer and do more damage. Tails brought the plane down even farther as Amy continued to drop bombs. The base below was beginning to deteriorate as the many bombs exploded its exterior, leaving the structure weakened. Finally the base began to fall apart and collapse, and the missiles stopped coming, indicating that victory was just around the corner. Tails swooped down and picked up Sonic before beginning to pull back up into the sky so that they could circle around to make sure that Eggman had been put completely out of commission, when one last missile flew up into the sky and took Tails by surprise. The missile took out his right wing causing the plane to immediately fall into a nosedive directly toward the ground.

"Hold on tight guys!" Tails yelled over the sound of the wind rushing by, and the loud noise of the engine failing. "We're coming in for a bumpy landing!"

Sonic held tightly onto the front of the top wing, his feet flying wildly through the air behind him, and Amy was gripping onto Tails' seat for dear life.

The plane began to spin around out of control and before they knew it, they hit the ground and everything went completely black.

**Sonic**

Pain and stiffness were the only two things that Sonic could focus on when his consciousness began to come to him. His entire body ached, and he was terrified of what he would see when he opened his eyes. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open, revealing a sight that he wished he hadn't seen. Tails had been ejected from the plane and was lying quite a distance away from the Tornado in what could only be described as very poor condition, and Amy was sitting in her seat in the Tornado in an awkward position. Blood dripped off of her forehead, and it looked from this angle as though her neck was bent in an unnatural position.

"Tails…Amy..." he tried to call to them, but his voice came out in a hoarse rasp. He tried to sit up so that he could go help them, but his body protested resiliently until he finally collapsed back on the ground and fell back into unconsciousness.

**Amy**

Everything seemed so surreal, as though everything that was happening could only really happen in a nightmare. Time appeared to have stopped, and Amy could see a bright light at the end of the corridor in which she was standing. A sense of déjà vu came over her suddenly. For some reason, she recognized this tunnel as though she had been here before, but her mind failed to retrieve the memory. She began to walk toward the light with a sense of curiosity and amazement, wondering what wonderful things were waiting at the end of the tunnel.

"Amy? Amy!" a familiar voice called from behind her.

Spinning around she looked into the darkness before her, feeling a sense of dread and sadness come over her. "This isn't real. I must be dreaming," she said to herself.

"Amy, you need to wake up now. Please wake up."

Clair's voice echoed through the tunnel, beckoning for Amy. She turned and glanced back at the light one last time before taking off in the direction that she had heard Clair's voice. "Clair! Clair, where are you?" Amy's feet seemed as though they couldn't move fast enough, and before she knew it, she stepped out into nothingness.

Amy's eyes slid open, and she was sitting in the backseat of the Tornado wide-eyed and confused. The seat in front of her was covered in blood, as well as the floor and her dress. She began to search her body for any sign of injury, only to find that she was perfectly fine. "Sonic! Tails!" she called out as glancing around in horror, not knowing if they were okay as well.

"Over here!" Tails called. He was lying on the ground, and slowly sat himself up so he could see where Amy was. She ran toward him, and held her hand out to him to help him up.

"I thought we were dead for sure. I hope Sonic is okay too," she said as she helped him up.

"Yeah we're incredibly lucky that we escaped that unscathed. I see him," Tails said pointing behind Amy. She spun around and could see Sonic lying on the ground not far from the Tornado.

"Sonic!" she cried running toward him. "Are you okay?" She dropped to her knees beside him and could see that he was unconscious. "Sonic wake up! Wake up!" she began to shake him until suddenly his eyes popped open.

"Amy? You're okay?" he asked in disbelief. He looked over and saw Tails coming up behind Amy and released a sigh of relief. "You're okay too little buddy? I woke up for a brief moment and saw that you had broken your neck," he said looking at Amy, "And you had been ejected from the Tornado and were in sorry shape." He was looking at Tails.

"I _was_ ejected from the plane, but I'm fine. Maybe you were delusional from hitting your head or something?" Tails said.

Amy thought back to the blood all over the remains of the Tornado, and wondered if what Sonic had seen was real. In that case, how was it that they were all perfectly fine? "Well it doesn't matter now because we're all uninjured and we defeated Eggman. I think that calls for a celebration," Sonic suggested.

Amy stood out on the balcony of Tails' workshop, looking up into the night sky as she pondered the events of earlier. She sipped from her water bottle and listened to the sound of the music, dancing, and chatting coming from below. All of their friends had been invited to this little celebration, but Amy just wasn't in the mood to party tonight. As she gazed out at the stars, she heard someone come up behind her.

"Is everything alright?" Sonic asked as he joined her.

"Everything's fine. I'm just not in the mood to party right now," she answered staring off into the night sky.

"You don't feel like partying? That has to be a first."

"Something just doesn't seem right. I'm almost positive I died again today. Kind of like when I died in that cave, and Clair brought me back to life. I just can't figure it out."

"I'm not really sure what happened either. I was positive that what I had seen was real. But we can dwell on the past all we want and still not figure it out. The important thing is that we're all alive and well, and we should enjoy this moment to its fullest."

"You know, you're right. We should enjoy this moment to its fullest and not worry about the past." And with that, she spun Sonic around to face her, and pulled him in for an unexpected kiss. Their lips met, and Amy realized that she had been waiting for this her entire life, and if he wasn't going to make the first move, then she definitely wasn't going to wait. His eyes popped wide open in surprise, and his arms came up instinctively as though he was going to fend her off, but dropped and rested on her waist instead. She pulled away and looked up into his face with great expectation and happiness, wondering what he was thinking and wishing she could be inside his head at this very moment. "So?"

"I… uh… what did you say, Tails?" he called glancing toward the staircase even though no one had called him. "I have to go, sorry!" he stammered before taking off down the stairs.

"Wait! Sonic! Don't leave!" she called. "I guess things will never change, huh?"

She leaned against the balcony once again, taking in her surroundings wondering if she had scared Sonic off yet again. If anything this new development would make things interesting and possibly progress the relationship with him that she had always hoped and dreamed of. Suddenly she noticed movement in the corner of her eye, and a small gray cat dropped down onto the balcony. There was something very strange and familiar about this cat. "Hey, didn't I see you in the desert?" she asked turning to face the cat. The kitten's blue eyes stared back at Amy with a strange intensity.

"Wait a second," Amy said remembering the name that had been on the tag of the kitten's collar. The little cat meowed at her before jumping up on the railing of the balcony, so she could get onto the roof. Once the kitten was on the roof, she took off, and Amy was no longer able to see her. A strange mixture of hope and sadness filled her as she turned back around so she could look up into the night sky once again, and somewhere deep inside her, she knew that things would be okay.

_End_


End file.
